Persistent growers, vintners hope to turn shores of Flathead Lake into … Wine country

Their dream has taken root - literally.

Tiny twigs stick maybe two inches above the black dirt. Some twigs have a tiny solitary leaf reaching skyward.

Years from now, those twigs should become a grape vineyard. A few years more, and that vineyard is supposed to become a winery.

Right now, the fledgling vineyard is a nondescript 3/4-acre black dirt rectangle a mile or so south of Flathead Lake.

This is cattle country. Bears and deer wander through. So do snowmobiles and pickup trucks.

Western Montana does not conjure up images of vineyards and winemakers. But they're there - scattered next to or near Flathead Lake's eastern and southern shores.

Six or seven vineyards overall. One to 5 acres in size. And one long-established winery.

A few weeks ago, Gino and Mary Frances Casselli and their daughter Diana Sheffield

planted 352 fledgling vines of nine varieties of grapes in this cattle pasture.

Right now, a hose stretches several hundred feet from a well to water the plants. A small, no-frills irrigation system will soon be installed

"It doesn't look like much, but there's a lot of work in it," said Gino Casselli, a Polson businessman.

Over the next three to five years, the Cassellis hope to find out through trial and error which grapes can flourish in Montana's cool, unpredictable and short growing season.

In eight to 10 years, they hope to have more vineyards, a house and a winery on the 26-acre plot just east of Polson.

Actually, the Cassellis' vineyard-to-be is just the latest attempt to grow grapes for wine around Flathead Lake.

In fact, the lake's shoreline has a slow-moving but decent track record in this field since the early 1980s.

Picture a letter "J" in your mind, and superimpose it over Flathead Lake. The vineyards follow the outline of that "J" - stretching from Dayton's Mission Mountain Winery at Flathead Lake's southwestern corner to along the southern and eastern shores to end up outside of Bigfork in the north.

Mission Mountain is the only profitable operation in the bunch. The other grape growers - besides the entrepreneurial Cassellis - are essentially serious hobbyists who hope to sell enough to Mission Mountain to recoup a chunk of their expenses.

But all share a dream that the Flathead Lake area - hundreds of miles from any traditional winemaking region - can achieve the reputation for quality wine found in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and California.

"I've got neighbors who think this is the best thing ever to happen to this land. I've got neighbors who think I'm out of my mind," Casselli said.

Flathead Lake's grape-growing roots go back more than 20 years with two unrelated experiments on the lake's southwestern and southeastern shores.

Tom Campbell, a doctor from Missoula, bought 30 acres in Dayton in 1979. Campbell's son, Tom Jr., was a University of Montana zoology graduate. He studied agriculture at the University of California at Davis, and then worked at some California wineries.

Meanwhile in 1983, Dudley Page, a since-retired anesthesiologist from Great Falls and his wife, Annie, bought a second home on Finley Point.

The Campbells looked at western Montana's long history of growing apples and cherries in orchards and thought "What about grapes?"

"All my professors in California said 'You're nuts.' Everyone (he knew in Washington's then-fledgling wine industry) said I was crazy, even though they were just starting out," the younger Campbell said.

The 30 acres in Dayton were made up of several types of soils, hilly spots, flat areas and different drainages. The Campbells planted several types of grapes and grew them several different ways - trying to figure out what would work in Northwest Montana.

They found that grapes would grow on only 3 1/2 of the acres.

"It was an expensive experiment," Campbell said.

Meanwhile, Page became fascinated with all the cherry orchards along the lake's east side.

"I was always interested in why in the devil can't they grow grapes here when they're growing all these cherries," he said.

Page consulted with viticulture experts at Washington State University's Tri-Cities campus - in the middle of southeastern Washington's sagebrush-filled wine country - and bought 10 types of grapes from a nursery in Pasco, Wash.

"We didn't know what to do. We set up little vineyards and planted all 10 varieties," Page said. "We shotgunned it."

It took a few years for Campbell and Page to figure out what worked and what didn't in terms of which soils to use, what grapes to plant and how to care for them.

"I had to figure out what makes that (specific) flavor in a (specific) wine. Then I had to figure out how do I make that flavor in a grape," Campbell said.

The Campbells founded Mission Mountain Winery at Dayton in 1984 and Horizon Edge Winery at Zillah, Wash., in 1985. They later sold Horizon Edge in 1999. They imported grapes from California and Washington to start making wine. The first Montana grapes were used in 1984 to make Pale Ruby Champagne at Mission Mountain.

On the other side of the lake, Page plugged away on his 5 acres, trying to find something that could grow in less than 120 days.

Then came the winter of 1988-89. A super-cold winter.

At that time, Page was experimenting with pinot noir grapes, and figured the extreme cold killed that crop.

Then in April 1989, the plants budded.

By July 1989, "that pinot … was growing like crazy," Page said.

Campbell and Page met face-to-face for the first time in 1989.

They compared notes, and found each independently settled on pinot noir as the best grape for the Flathead.

"We didn't know (in the 1980s) that pinot nor was considered one of the toughest grapes to grow," Page noted.

For the past 15 years, Flathead Lake's 1990s flirtation with grapes and wine-making has been a slow tease.

Every two or three years, someone would move to the lake and see the area's orchards, and think about grapes.

Then that someone would hear about Page and Campbell, and pick their brains.

Then they would fall in love with the idea of having a small vineyard as a sideline or as a retirement hobby.

"There's a romance to growing grapes. … a vineyard is a beautiful sight, and people like going into vineyards," Page said.

Flathead grape-growers talked about the fun and companionship of inviting neighbors over for harvest parties, and of strolling through their vineyards just to soak up the ambiance.

This romance is especially attractive to people who like to grow things.

Several Flathead grape-growers are people who originally liked to garden on the side, and see vineyards as a natural progression of their hobbies. And almost all never dabbled in grapes before, making their Flathead ventures their first vineyards.

"It's kind of fun to turn nothing into something. I get a sense of accomplishment," said Doug Van Dyck, a peridontist from Great Falls. He and his wife, Sandy, planted grapes on about 3 acres of hillside at their second home outside of Bigfork. This is their third year of growing grapes, and the first in which they try to sell some to Mission Mountain Winery.

Richard and Pauline Hartman, a Denver couple specializing in business investments, also began a small vineyard at their second home in the Yellow Bay area.

"You get totally caught up in growing things," Pauline Hartman said. "The risk to me is totally appealing. You're putting your knowledge out there and trying to see if you can do it." This will also be the Hartmans' first year to try to sell their grapes to Mission Mountain.

Pauline Hartman said: "I can't imagine what it will be to open a bottle of our own grapes - that's the carrot."

Although pinot noir is Montana's prime grape - pinot gris, Riesling, Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer grapes have also gained a foothold in the state.

The destination for all of today's Flathead Lake grapes is Mission Mountain Winery.

That's if the grapes are good enough.

Page and a couple of other grape-growers grow what Campbell wants. Newcomers such as the Van Dycks and Hartmans are crossing their fingers this year to see if Campbell will accept their first harvests this fall.

Campbell collects about 80 to 100 tons of grapes a year, mostly from the Columbia and Yakima valleys in Washington - with maybe 10 percent from Montana

This translates to about 6,500 cases of wine a year, compared to the winery's first-year production of 2,500 cases in 1984. The Dayton winery is adding a second warehouse this year.

The mix of Montana and Washington grapes has enabled Mission Mountain to produce Riesling, chardonnay, pinot gris, a blush wine, muscat canelli, Nouveaux Riche, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, and a blend called Monster Red. The "Monster" comes from this area's longtime, legendary and ill-defined " Flathead Lake Monster."

The winery's repertoire has won at least 50 awards in wine-judging contests.

Mission Mountain's sales have grown 5 to 6 percent each year, although Campbell declined to discuss dollar figures.

Meanwhile, two new wineries - Lolo Peak and Ten Spoons - opened in 1997 and 2000 in the Missoula area.

With wineries mushrooming in the Pacific Northwest, Campbell has to stay ahead of the competition.

What will be the new wine-sipping tastes in 2008 or 2010? Campbell's instincts are cueing on strong identifiable fruity flavors - complex blends with several tastes emanating from a sip.

"I'm trying to get ahead of the curve. If you follow the bandwagon, you're always behind," Campbell said. "I have to ask myself: 'Where is this trend going. Can I ferret out the next great idea. Can I do it well?'"

"I want to do the whole nine yards like Tom does," Gino Casselli said.

That includes setting up a winery, calling it some variation of the "Casselli-Ravalli" winery. The Cassellis admire Father Anthony Ravalli, a missionary priest and pharmacist who lived in western Montana from 1845 to 1884. Ravalli County is named after him.

The Casselli's daughter, Diana, has a biology degree and plans to start working on an oenology degree at the University of California at Davis this fall. She hopes to tap into California winemaking expertise and then become the head of winemaking at her parents' operation when it expands beyond its initial 3/4-acre plot.

Meanwhile, plenty of work still has to be done.

A permanent watering system must be built. So do trellises for the eventual vines.

Bears and deer love to eat grapes. Cattle might wander through the plants.

So a top priority is to build a fence to keep out the critters.

Eventually, the Cassellis hope a house and winery will occupy the pasture around the vineyard.

"I'm hoping the next 10 years will fly by pretty fast," Casselli said.