WALLA WALLA, Wash. — Few jobs are as pressure-packed as working the line at a popular restaurant or the crush pad at a famous winery.
For a couple of years, Bobby Richards somehow did both before turning in his apron and settling in at Seven Hills Winery in downtown Walla Walla.
“I don’t really remember how I did it, and I don’t know that I’d want to,” Richards says with a chuckle.
If there were any fires to put out, Richards had a handle on that, too, spending a decade as a volunteer firefighter for Walla Walla County.
Now, Richards is able to focus on making some of the best wines in the Pacific Northwest. He proved that during the 2023 Great Northwest Invitational Wine Competition by winning a gold medal for each of the four wines he entered — including the 2021 Carménère that was voted the No. 1 wine of the 11th annual international judging.
Each gold medal for Seven Hills was linked to small lots of Bordeaux varieties, storied vineyards and relationships that began with founding winemaker Casey McClellan. Richards took over in 2021 when McClellan retired as a consultant.
“I’m stoked about the judging,” Richards says. “Winning anything is exciting, and for all four wines to win gold is awesome. We want people to know that we’re focused on crafting quality wines from Walla Walla, and to us, it all starts in the vineyard. And it all started with Casey.”
McClellan family launched Seven Hills Winery in 1988
The McClellans sold their historic winery project in 2016 to Napa-based Crimson Wine Group, but Richards has been allowed to maintain the long-term relationships with growers that McClellan built. Some of the state’s oldest vines contribute to the Seven Hills reserve wines, which include two renowned sites along the White Bluffs — plantings from 1972 at Sagemoor and 1982 at Gamache.
“I feel we haven’t really gotten the recognition, and I don’t know why we haven’t,” Richards says. “Casey and his family planted the first acres of production vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley, so there’s that legacy with our brand.”
Richards arrived at Seven Hills Winery a decade ago in 2013. Four years earlier, while at Oregon State University, his field of study was forest management — class of 2009 — and his passion was brewing beer. That changed when his fermentation science club got its hands on a ton of Syrah grapes. Next for Richards was an internship at nearby Benton-Lane Winery. Then life led him to the Walla Walla Valley.
“When I got out of school, there were no forestry jobs,” he says. “I just moved up over here and wasn’t sure what I wanted.”
The product of West Albany High School still has a 541 area code for his mobile phone, even though in 2011 he and his wife, Maddie, began to put roots in the Walla Walla Valley, starting with a harvest job with Corliss-owned winery Tranche.
When that internship ended, his culinary background got him a job at acclaimed Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen, where he worked as a line cook, handled prep for executive chef/owner Chris Ainsworth and brought a special interest in pastry.
“I’ve always been someone who has got to be doing something,” Richards admits. “That could be building something or crafting something or cooking dishes. I’ve worked construction as summer jobs and still worked on the weekends.”
He had a hunger to get back into the wine industry on a full-time basis, but when a part-time harvest intern position at Seven Hills Winery came up, Richards worked both jobs. Fortunately, the historic winery and the James Beard nominated-restaurant were only a few blocks apart.
“Once I found a job in wine, that gave me an outlet to craft something using different styles, which is the magic of winemaking,” Richards says. “You take this fruit that’s been grown in the field and bring it into the cellars where your hard work puts it in the bottle. And there are so many ways to get there. That’s the fun part and the artistic side.”
His work ethic and desire prompted McClellan and his wife, Vicky, to bring Richards back for 2014. He resigned from Saffron after more than two years of employment.
“Casey and Vicky must have thought, ‘This kid has some potential’ — and here we are 10 years later,” Richards chuckles.
He soon became the assistant winemaker. Before long, the McClellans sold their winery.
“Crimson took over in 2016, I just kept working hard and Casey was pushing for me to take over for him,” Richards says.
Richards’ duties for Crimson span 46,000 cases
Richards is now in charge of Washington state wine operations for Crimson, which means he makes wine at Seven Hills in downtown Walla Walla and at the Double Canyon production facility in West Richland — an hour’s drive west that’s a few miles easier with the latest Highway 12 expansion west of Walla Walla.
“I wish the speed limit for the whole way was 70 mph,” he chuckles.
While Richards and his teams produce about 46,000 cases for Crimson’s Washington brands, 10 barrels — 250 cases — of Carménère is what Richards turned into the best-of-show wine at the 2023 Invite.
Seven Hills wine club members get allocated most of that, but bottles are available in the Seattle area at Metropolitan Market locations. Wine buyer Mark Takagi — a longtime judge at Great Northwest Invite — requested as many cases as possible, capitalizing on Metropolitan Market’s years of retailing Seven Hills wines.
“I chose to enter more of our wine club and direct-to-consumer wines for this judging because it’s regional,” Richards explains. “Most of our other wines get sent all over the country to get the scores, but this allowed me to show the work we do with some of the other varieties.”
The approach Richards took with the Seven Hills Winery 2022 Reserve Sauvignon Blanc received applause from the panel. It’s a blend of French oak (60%) and concrete egg fermentations (40%) that spent eight months on the lees prior to bottling.
“It drinks more like a white Bordeaux, with more body and more weight,” Richards describes. “It is more of a winter Sauv Blanc to be enjoyed by the fire or with heartier dishes.”
Production for the 2022 vintage was 225 cases, “which is real small compared to the other Sauv Blanc, and I’d like to grow it,” he says.
Another gold medal from The Invite went to the 2020 SHW Founding Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($65), an eight-barrel production made from historic vines in the Walla Walla Valley. The McClellan and Hendricks families pioneered plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon in 1980 and Merlot 1982 in what would become known as Seven Hills West. That block attracted famous customers and has seen ownership changes. In 2016, Crimson purchased 21 acres of those storied plantings. Part of the agreement was that Seven Hills Winery would rename the site as SHW Founding Vineyard to help avoid further confusion.
The best-of-show Carménère was built upon a foundation of Seven Hills Vineyard along with Summit View Vineyard.
The Meritage-inspired 2021 Pentad ($85) takes a Left Bank Bordeaux angle, leading with Cabernet Sauvignon (55%) and Merlot (19%). It contains five of the six classic Bordeaux varieties — leaving out Carménère. The appreciation among the panel of sommeliers for the young Pentad did not surprise Richards.
“We haven’t changed the approach with the Pentad, which is to make the best wine possible that shows that vintage in the Walla Walla Valley,” he says. “We’re making it every year now, but we didn’t used to. Over time, we found that even some of the vintages that were considered ‘off’ by some, after a few years of bottle aging, became really nice.
“I’ve got a quote on a locker — ‘A great wine is a wine you can drink any time,’ ” Richards adds. “A younger wine might be a bit bolder or if it’s a ’94 then there will be those tertiary characteristics to enjoy and appreciate.”
Seven Hills ranks as 5th-oldest winery in Walla Walla
McClellan launched Seven Hills Winery in 1988. At the time, there were only a handful of producers in the Walla Walla Valley — Leonetti Cellar, Woodward Canyon, L’Ecole N° 41 and Waterbrook. However, McClellan was the region’s first scholastically educated winemaker, earning a master’s degree based on enology from University of California-Davis after receiving a bachelor’s degree in pharmaceutical studies from the University of Washington. (McClellan came out of retirement in spring 2023 to serve as interim director of the Walla Walla Community College viticulture and enology program after the department made a sudden change in leadership.)
“One of our goals is to educate people who we are, what we’ve done and what we do — which is to provide quality without a high price tag,” Richards says. “We’re not charging $200 for a bottle of Cab. And we want to let the consumer know when they come back, the quality will be there every year and price isn’t going to change that much.”
He points to the 2022 Rosé ($20) as emblematic of the Seven Hills Winery approach and style — it’s made primarily with Cabernet Franc — balanced and not priced excessively.
“The 2013 was the first vintage, and it started out at 100 cases,” he said. “Now it’s up to 3,000 cases, and we’re still just trying to create a product with a consumer-friendly price point.”
The Seven Hills Winery flagship Sauvignon Blanc has been a wild ride on a rocket ship, quickly ramping up to 10,000 cases during the 2022 and 2023 harvests. There are as many eight vineyards in play, depending upon the vintage and market forces.
“It’s fun to showcase the alchemy and the art of it; the hard work to grow the grapes, making the wine and selling the wine,” Richards says. “It all makes having that bottle to share something fun and special.”
Beyond his family, which includes wife Maddie — who is also a member of the Walla Walla Valley wine industry — their daughter and three dogs, there is golfing and snowboarding.
“I have house projects that I don’t know that I’m really saving money on by doing them myself,” he said with a chuckle.
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