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CapitalPress.com
Friday, April 8, 2022
Arena Valley Vineyard: Sells grapes to
other wineries and makes its own wine
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
S272107-1
Scott DeSeelhorst owns
and operates Arena Valley
Vineyard between Wilder
and Parma, Idaho. It is an
area known for its mild cli-
mate and sandy loam soils
— perfect for grapes.
“My wife, Susan, and I
bought this 90-acre prop-
erty in 1998,” he said. “Cur-
rently, 70 acres are planted
with another 6 acres sched-
uled to be planted.
“We were living in Utah,
but my wife’s family is from
Idaho. I fell in love with
Idaho and looked for some-
thing to do up here. My
background was in restau-
rant,” he said. “I understood
that end of the wine business
but had no farm experience.”
He decided to try
grape-growing and asked a
friend in real estate to look
for a 10-acre south-facing
hillside that could be planted.
“That’s all I thought I
could plant, and this was all
I knew about grapevines,”
Scott said. “He found a
75-acre vineyard that might
be for sale and I jumped
right in.”
The grapes were under
contract to Ste. Chapelle. He
continued with that market
until he and Susan built their
winery.
The vineyard was origi-
nally planted in 1983 with
4 varietals — Cabernet,
Merlot, Chardonnay and
Riesling.
“We started pulling out
some of the Chardonnay and
Riesling and started plant-
ing different varietals. We
started with small blocks
of different varietals to see
what would do well here,”
Scott said.
“Back
then,
there
weren’t very many differ-
ent ones being planted. We
now have 20 different vari-
etals. We make wine from
some and sell some to other
Scott DeSeelhorst works on his Arena Valley Vineyard.
wineries,” he said.
Their label is Snake River
Winery.
The grapes that do well
on this site are Malbec, Cab-
ernet Sauvignon and Caber-
net Franc.
“I’m also excited about
some new Italian varietals
— a white called Arneis and
a rustic red Montepulciano,”
he said. “Also, Tempranillo
and Viognier do well for us.”
Chardonnay is one of
their biggest sellers, because
most customers are familiar
with it.
“In the vineyard we use
sustainable farming prac-
tices and haven’t used
chemicals like Roundup for
at least 10 years. We take
a very natural approach,
which means a lot of hand
work,” said Scott.
The vineyard has a crew
of employees and uses sea-
sonal contract labor during
pruning and harvest.
“It requires a lot of bod-
ies to pick grapes,” he said.
“Many vineyards have gone
to mechanical harvesters
and we went that route for a
while, but are now doing it
all by hand.”
The vineyard is on a
slope, which is important in
Idaho, where there is always
a risk of spring and fall frost.
Colder air tends to settle
into low areas, so being on a
slope helps keep the vines a
little warmer.
“I’ve learned to plant
the later-ripening varietals
on the top of the slope and
early-ripening ones down
toward the valley and in
the depressions,” he said.
“We are 2,300 feet eleva-
tion, about 1,000 feet higher
than the Walla Walla vine-
yards. Being this much
higher has more risk for cold
temperatures, but the cooler
nights produce a higher nat-
ural level of acidity in the
grapes.”
In some of the lower, hot-
ter regions such as Califor-
nia, winemakers must add
tartaric or citric acid because
they can’t get that natural
effect.
There are many tricks to
growing grapes.
“We’ve learned how
to prune them differently.
Some late-ripening grapes,
like Barbera, have super-
high natural acidity. When
deciding when to pick, we
are mostly looking at sugar
content and acidity; with the
Barbera we have to wait for
acidity to drop to acceptable
level,” he said. “We prune it
differently — to have fewer
clusters per vine. I get low
tonnage per acre, but this
helps ensure they’ll ripen.”
This puts the energy of
the plant into fewer grapes
and they ripen quicker.
“Other grapes, like Char-
donnay, ripen earlier so we
can hang a heavier crop load
on those,” he said. “It’s lit-
tle things like this we’ve
learned along the way, as
we’ve gotten to know the
grapes, the different vari-
etals and how to treat them.”