Dr. Walter Clore

Vinifera dreams become world class wines

Last month, Penny Rawson shared the beginnings of Walter Clore's interest in growing wine grapes in Washington. She continues the story this month.

Dr. Walter Clore's copious notes on the vinifera grape showed he understood how complex the end product of grapes could be, not only region-to-region but also from vineyard-to-vineyard and, inevitably, one side of a hill to the other.  

In 1957, Vere Brummond was hired as a technical assistant. In him, Dr. Clore found someone who had the same enthusiasm for the state's wine potential. Brummond, who was introduced to vinifera wine while stationed in Europe, was the first to make wine from the "mother block" at the WSU Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Station in Prosser (photo courtesy of WSU).

In 1964, Dr. Charles (Chas) Nagel of the Department of Food Science and Technology at WSU began making wine from some of the test sites and developing tasting panels to check progress. In 1966, George Carter became the official winemaker for the group, who collectively came to be known as The Wine Project. Brummond left the group in the early seventies to pursue other wine interests. 

In 1972, Mike Wallace, a young enthusiastic winemaker taking a post-graduate course at Davis, met Dr. Clore at a seminar in Palo Alto. This meeting led to Mike Wallace taking a job at the research center in Prosser for three years while he was planting his own Hinzerling Winery's vineyard. Mike found Dr. Clore "a very low key guy" who let him do anything at the research center once his duties had been done for the day. Mike continues, "I have always felt that I should have paid Walter to work with me, I learned so much." 

These sites and stations around the state continued to prove to Dr. Clore that vinifera grapes would grow in the semi-desert conditions of Eastern Washington with limited water supplies and temperatures that every year would range from long summer days over 100 degrees F to the icy, below-freezing cold of winter. 

One test site was at Red Willow Vineyards on the very western edge of the Yakima Valley. Mike Sauer, the owner and creator of this high-profile vineyard, was only 24 years old when he first decided that his agricultural focus would be grapes. A county extension agent advised him to talk with Dr. Walter Clore at the WSU Extension Station in Prosser.

Dr. Walter Clore (left), Mike Sauer (center), George Carter (right) in 1995, courtesy of Mike Sauer.

"Even though I was young, Dr. Clore took me seriously, perhaps more seriously than I took myself at that time. I was even invited to meetings and the occasional tasting panel to evaluate wines." 

In 1972-73, an experimental plot of over 20 varieties of vinifera grapes from the "mother block" were planted at Red Willow, and one of the series of weather stations that were installed around the state to compare climate conditions was also strategically placed.

The original encounter in 1972 blossomed in later years to a friendship of mutual respect. Mike continues, "He was my friend and mentor. He helped me have the passion for new and different varieties." He goes on to say that after Dr. Clore retired "Some of my fondest memories of Walt are when he and George would come out to Red Willow complete with boxed lunches and we would open wines. He loved to visit vineyards."

In 2001, Mike Sauer received The Walter J. Clore Award in recognition of his significant contribution to the grape industry. This award was established by the Washington State Grape Society who in 1977 honored Dr. Clore as the first recipient. 

Dr. Walter Clore was awarded many other accolades in his lifetime including the prestigious Alec Bayless Award in 1992 for viticultural contributions to the wine industry, and the 1995 Merit Award from the American Society for Enology and Viticulture which he shared with Dr. Charles Nagel. His name continues to be acknowledged in many ways with WSU's Walter J. Clore Scholarship awarded to students in agriculture and home economics, and by Columbia Crest who renamed the Reserve wine aging area the Walter Clore Barrel Room. A vineyard close to the winery in Paterson also bears his name.

Daughter Nancy Clore Dexter remembers a trip in 1984 she took with her father to Spain "where my Dad had the red carpet treatment from big wine companies there and brandy makers in Portugal. It was a fantastic trip and, even then, Dad was known as the father of Washington state wines before that title was actually given to him." 

That title was made official in 2001 when the Washington State Legislature passed House Resolution 2001-4467 recognizing Dr. Clore as the Father of the Washington State Wine Industry for his research. 

After Dr. Clore retired from WSU in 1976, he became a wine industry consultant with clients including Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Crest and Klipsun Vineyards (which is listed among the top 25 vineyards in the world by Wine & Spirits Magazine). In his private life, he continued to enjoy wine and wine growing as a hobby, tending the rose gardens he planted early on at the Research Station in honor of his mother's rose nursery in Tulsa, enjoying a Riesling wine with salmon dinners and tending his church's Clore-created landscape "until he got to 90 years of age and could not safely get around the hoses," according to Nancy. 

In 1997, "The Wine Project: Washington State's Winemaking History" by Ron Irvine and Walter J. Clore was published. In this must-read book for anyone raising a glass of Washington wine, Ron notes that after traveling the whole state with Walt, "As he aged, he maintained the hope and enthusiasm he had in 1937." 

Dr. Walter Clore died on February 3, 2003. 

On May 8, 2009, Dr. Walter Clore was given the AgForestry's Stu Bledsoe Memorial Leadership Award honoring those who make a difference in their industry or community.

This occasion provided an unexpected link to Dr. Clore's early predictions that this state could and would produce world class wines. Nancy Dexter Clore accepted this posthumous award from the young man who had nominated her father. She was very impressed with him and says, "He gave a very emotional and factual talk about my father, and how important he is and how important Dad's research continues to be to him, a winemaker."

That young winemaker was Juan Muñoz Oca who as an intern at Columbia Crest in 2002, met Dr. Clore at the release reception for their 1999 Walter Clore Reserve Red– a classic Bordeaux blend. In 2005, Muñoz Oca went through his first vintage as the rookie red winemaker at Columbia Crest in Paterson, Washington. As fate would have it, and much to Juan's delight, he became part of Head Winemaker Ray Einburger's team that released the Columbia Crest 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. 

The recent selection of this wine by the Wine Spectator as their Number 1 Wine in the World for 2009 is the perfect validation of Dr. Walter Clore's early predictions for the Washington state wine industry. 

How proud Walt must be. In many ways he had a share in this recognition: he was and always will be part of the team for Washington wines.

Penny Rawson/December 2009

Click here to read Part 1 of our Walter Clore story.

Penny Rawson is a long-time Northwest food writer and owner of Penny Rawson Public & Media Relations. She spent many years working in Washington's wine industry.