A VALUE WINE GAINS NEW RESPECT

For 25 years, Hogue Cellars has been comfortable in the value wines niche market, making pretty good wines under the $10 and $20 price points. If Hogue wasn't the first winery to come to mind, it had enough respectability to pull in steady business off grocery store shelves.

But the Prosser-based winery has quietly raised the bar, searching for better vineyards, using better fruit, and giving more in the glass while keeping the price down. Now Hogue Cellars is coming of age, and consumers are buying the wines because they're good values as well as tasty beverages.

"We're the best we've ever been," says Gary Hogue, co-founder of the winery and whose family has grown crops in the Yakima Valley since the 1940s. Gary and his brother Mike, a farmer and home winemaker, started the winery in 1982.

"It isn't just Hogue, but the quality of Washington state wines has risen," Hogue says. "Over the years, we've learned how to make better wines. And it has become abundantly clear which vineyard sites produce the best varietal with the highest quality. We know what works."

When the Hogue brothers started the winery 25 years ago, there were few other wineries on the horizon. Their first year, the brothers sold $800 worth of wine at the Prosser Wine & Food Festival, using a shoebox to convert coins and cash. They made 2,000 cases that year and ramped up to 5,000 cases the next.

For an average price of $6, the wines were fruitforward, not very complex, and not much to talk about in terms of the "wow" factor. They were basic wines that could be served with a meal. The brothers made a conscious decision to be farmers with a good product at a good price, rather than a boutique winery offering expensive wines.

However, as vineyards became available that offered better grapes, winemaker David Forsyth developed wines with a little more heft and flavor. Now the winery offers Hogue wines (under $10), the Genesis brand (better, more complex wines around $15-$16), and a reserve line, using the best grapes on the market (priced $25- $30).

After an expansion to more than 500,000 cases annually, the Hogue brothers sold the winery in 2001 for a reported $36 million to Vincor International. Vincor was then sold to industry giant Constellation, now Hogue Cellars' parent company. Gary stayed on to help with national sales and marketing. Mike, who kept Hogue's vineyards in the sale, is starting Mercer Estates Winery. He recently named David Forsyth, formerly of Hogue, as his new winemaker.

"It's been an exciting time for me," says Co Dinn, 46, the newly appointed director of winemaking at Hogue. Dinn has been with Hogue Cellars since 1996. "We've gone from a family-run winery to a corporately run business," he says. "There have been a lot of changes, not to mention the explosion of the wine industry in the Northwest."

Dinn has continued to improve Hogue's wines - sourcing new, smaller vineyards and requesting smaller yields per acre, so the grapes will have more flavor.

THE WINES

Under the Hogue label, Dinn and crew produce Pinot Grigio, Fume Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and a Cab-Merlot blend. The wines are under $10 and generally fruit-forward, expected to be consumed sooner rather than later.

Under the Genesis label, Hogue offers such varietals as Riesling, Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. I recently discovered a 1999 Genesis Syrah in my wine cellar that had aged beautifully, with plenty of fruit and spice left in the bottle, so these wines can age.