Seventeen years ago, John Bookwalter joined his family’s winery to begin a new, exciting chapter for Bookwalter wines. With California wine pioneer Zelma Long as his guide, he finetuned the winemaking style and soon the name Bookwalter was cropping up in wine publications. In 2005, it was named Winery of the Year by Wine Press Northwest.
In the spring of 2009, John partnered with winemaker Claude Gros. Claude has earned great respect from Robert Parker, who considers him one of “two of the finest winemaking consultants.” John couldn’t agree more, pointing to the fact that Bookwalter wines routinely receive high scores. Recently, two of the wines were lauded on Seattle Met Magazine’s list of Top 100 Washington Wines: the 2010 J. Bookwalter Volume One Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley was slated Number 2 on the single varietals list; and the 2010 J. Bookwalter Protagonist Red Wine Columbia Valley was Number 1 on the list of red blends.
Besides creating a great portfolio of wines, John believes in promoting the connection of food and wine by enhancing his customer’s tasting experience. J. Bookwalter has two tasting rooms: in Woodinville and Richland. The Woodinville Tasting Studio has an expansive patio where on weekends, weather permitting, its Roundabout Café offers appetizers, hot sandwiches, and salads that pair nicely with the Bookwalter portfolio. The Richland tasting room has a full restaurant, JBistro which serves the freshest, organic, local ingredients possible. The food philosophy at J. Bookwalter is to focus on the people who grow its food and the environment in which it is grown, and a higher quality product will inevitably be produced. JBisto’s Executive Chef Mark Schwegel, who has lived in the Tri-Cities his entire life, believes in creating a meaningful farm-to-table experience. “Talking to the farmers at our local farmers’ market inspires me,” Chef Mark says, “I, in turn, want to inspire our guests. It’s amazing the way local ingredients enhance the wines and vice versa.”