THE GRAPES didn’t belong to him. They hung through the fence that divided his property from the neighbor’s land. But the ripe fruit called to Gary Figgins as diamonds call to a bride-to-be.

“I asked my neighbor if I could pick some,” says Figgins, 58, the founder of Leonetti Cellar. “He asked me what I was going to use them for, and I said jam, but I made wine instead,” he says, laughing at the memory. “I didn’t drink that first batch. I was afraid to swallow it.”

It was 1968, and the first experimental wine from “sourced” grapes was produced by Figgins, a machinist who worked at Continental Can in the small rural community of Walla Walla. A man who years later would be lauded worldwide for his wines, Gary Figgins and his wife, Nancy, lived a modest life in the town where Figgins’ Italian grandparents had settled in 1906. Walla Walla was a speck on the map largely inhabited by farmers, who grew wheat and onions. The Italian families brought traditions from the old country – one of them the art of wine making.

“My grandfather came here from Calabria,” says Figgins. “Walla Walla had good land that was Mediterranean in character – perfect for growing grapes.”

Despite the area’s 100-year reputation for being vine-friendly, today just 1,200 of Washington’s 28,000 acres of vineyards are located within the Walla Walla appellation. Yet 20 percent of Washington’s 460 wineries are located in the town of 30,000. The early Italians couldn’t have guessed that the sips they gave their grandchildren would plant the seeds of today’s burgeoning wine industry. Figgins’ affinity for red wine started when he was 5 years old, partaking of a watered-down version his grandmother gave him. “It was part of their heritage,” he says with a smile.

In sharp contrast, Figgins’ best friend, Rick Small, founder of Woodward Canyon winery, was never interested in wine. Small and Figgins became friends in the 1970s during their service together in the Army reserves. “I didn’t grow up with wine,” says Small. “My degree is in agricultural science. It wasn’t until Gary and I became friends that I had any real interest.”

The two men studied wine together while working day jobs – Figgins as a machinist and Small on his father’s thriving cattle and wheat farm. Figgins planted his first Merlot vines in 1974, while Small took pictures. “In the beginning, it was really about Gary making wine and me watching,” says Small.

Figgins’ aspirations to make wine commercially grew faster than his vineyard. In 1976, Small helped Figgins make his first commercial wine from sourced grapes. Inspired, Small approached his family with an idea.

Rick Small’s father was a second-generation farmer and a creative thinker who was intrigued by the wine-making activities of Figgins and his son. “One day, I asked my dad if we could grow some grapes on the farm,” says Small. “He said, ‘Sure, but you can’t use the good soil.’ So I planted my first Chardonnay grapes on this awful, shallow piece of soil where the wheat wouldn’t grow.”

AN IDEAL CLIMATE

By climate, the odds were in Small’s favor. The Walla Walla Valley is ranked alongside the most prominent wine regions in the world – Tuscany, Bordeaux and Napa. “In Europe, they plant the vineyards in the least productive soil,” says Stan Clarke, coordinator at Walla Walla’s Institute for Enology and Viticulture. “Vines need to struggle in a growth-limiting condition or they’ll just produce little sacks of water. The water’s holding capacity is the single trickiest thing,” he explains.