In 2010, two wineries found their start: one in Billings, Yellowstone Cellars and Winery in November and another in Miles City, Tongue River Winery the month before. While Yellowstone Cellars source their grapes from Washington, Tongue River Winery makes their wines from fruit grown on their property or sourced locally.
The first winery, Mission Mountain Winery located on the West Shore of Flathead Lake was founded in 1980 with its first vintage in 1984 made with grapes grown in Montana and Washington’s Rattlesnake Hills. Then in 1998 Andy Sponseller and Constance Poten purchased property near Missoula to prevent development to later plant grapes for their winery, Ten Spoons.
Yellowstone Cellars and Winery
When Clint Peck started Yellowstone Cellars, at age 56 he admits, “I was at the age when I needed a job for the next 10 to 12 years.” “I sold my house. I sold my cows. I sold my horses, and people always laugh when I say I even sold my Harley Davidson motorcycle.”
“The reason that I opened up a winery in Billings, Montana is simply because I lived here, and I didn’t want to move anyplace else, and I wanted to give winemaking a try.”
Peck’s brother Ken and his wife Jill owned a winery in Blaine, Washington, Dakota Creek Winery. They opened their business in 2005 so provided inspiration for Clint to start his own endeavor.
Having grown up on a ranch, Peck confesses, “We like food, and we like to eat food.” They enjoyed drinking wine with his food, “and I found that wine made food taste better and made the dining experience better. When I built the winery and started making wine, it was all about how I could make wines that paired well with foods and maybe a good steak.”
These days, Peck’s daughter Sarah and her husband Brandon Skarsten now own the winery. Brandon shares, “In 2018, we were camping with Clint and we had the conversation. We were both a little unhappy with the way our careers were going. And Clint was like, well, why don’t you just buy the winery from me?”
Although the Skarstens thought Clint was crazy starting the winery, they admitted to being crazy in agreeing to buy it in 2021. They couple relocated from Missoula with their two daughters. Sarah is proud to keep the “family winemaking history going.” They are not only carrying on Clint’s legacy but that of her father’s brother. “And Ken, Sarah’s uncle, sourced those same grapes from those same vines, those same blocks, for 10 to 15 years prior to that,” Brandon shares.
At harvest time, Brandon makes the 1500-mile drive to secure their grapes. The 13-hour journey to the Yakima Valley, to Elephant Mountain Vineyard and Lonesome Springs Vineyard provide them with grapes that are consistent in quantity and quality.
For Brandon, who now makes the wine he wants to honor the grapes they source from Washington. “We really want to let the subtlety in the terroir shine from where we get our grapes, because it’s so diverse between our two vineyards, and there’s so many differences between the rows and within vineyards, and we wanted to just pay homage.”
However, there are some new changes. “We’ve done some subtle rebranding. We’ve updated the logo, made it a little bit more modernized.” Sarah says of the image of the glass ring from wine staining a napkin, “When dad would come over, we’d sit down and we’d talk, business and strategy and numbers and all those papers we still save have those wine glass stains on them because those discussions took some wine.”
The menu and wine descriptions have also been updated. “The most fun thing that we’ve added to our wine list is an album pairing. So each wine has its own individual album pairing and it changes from vintage to vintage as well.”
That love of music led to Yellowstone Cellars and Winery from the beginning to providing a space for musicians to perform their art. “We’re just a hugely musical family, like we are just audiophiles,” Sarah says.
Tongue River Winery
In Miles City, Bob Thaden and his wife Marilyn pride themselves “in making wine that will grow from fruit that grows in Montana. We aren’t interested in bringing in fruit from the West Coast that don’t have a chance of surviving here. So we’re growing mostly University of Minnesota grapes and a few other oddballs that are hardy enough to take temperature between minus 20 and minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.”
The hybrid grapes developed by the University of Minnesota thrive better under the Big Sky because they can be easier to grow and can ripen earlier than vinifera and are more disease resistant. The hybrid grapes are grape varieties that are a result of a crossing of two or more Vitis species while the European grapevine is typically crossing between varieties of the same species.
“Our philosophy always remains the same, if it won’t grow here, I won’t ferment it. We make a wide variety of wines, probably more wines than any other winery in the upper Midwest,” Thaden says.
“I think last year I did 35 different wines out of grapes. Naturally, we grow a half a dozen main varieties here, but we also make wine out of a lot of other common fruits and some uncommon fruits, including things like apples, pears, domestic plums, wild plums, yellow chokecherries, which are quite unusual, regular chokecherries, yellow raspberries, red raspberries.” Thaden ferments wines from red currants, black currents and haskap berries, also known as honeyberry, an edible blue honeysuckle.
On the Thaden’s three-acre property he believes, “The best grapes to grow in southeast Montana for survival are definitely the three Frontenacs.” Frontenac Noir, Frontenac Gris and Frontenac Blanc have proven to be successful producers, able to survive the subzero temperatures.
“These three grapes are all hardy to around 40 below. The Frontenac Noir has a decided black cherry flavor that comes through the grape quite nicely. Frontenac Gris and Frontenac Blanc make goo white wines that are reminiscent, to some extent, of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. We also grow Marquette, which is the University of Minnesota’s darling red grape.”
The wines produced from the hybrid grapes tend to be more acidic and fruitier with the reds lacking tannin. For Thaden, he says, “The most important thing is getting a proper balance between the acids and sugars in the wine. I tell our customers, when you swallow, I don’t want you thinking about how sour it was or how sweet it was. I want you thinking about the fruit flavor that the wine presented to you.”
Most people who taste Montana wine for the first time expect to experience the same characteristics presented from wines made in Europe and California. “What I hope people do when they stop at our Montana wineries is that they realize that they’re tasting wine, new products, especially if they’re made with the fruits that grow in Montana.” “When you consider Cabernet Sauvignon, which has been around for over 2000 years, and compare that to Marquette, which wasn’t released by the University of Minnesota until 2006.”
“So when you taste these wines, you shouldn’t expect them to taste like the European grapes, but appreciate them for their own flavor.”
