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CapitalPress.com
Friday, September 9, 2022
3100 Cellars: Specializing in bubbly
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
GARDEN CITY, Idaho
— Hailey Minder and her
husband, Marshall, started
making wine in 2014.
“The year before, we’d
gone on a river trip in Hells
Canyon on Halloween and
talked about the fact that
no one in Idaho was mak-
ing sparkling wine,” Hai-
ley said. “We like bubbles,
and no one was making
bubbles!”
Rivers are part of their
story. She and Marshall met
on the Middle Fork of the
Salmon River when he was
a river guide and Hailey was
a guest on one of his boat
trips.
“The name of our winery,
3100 Cellars, comes from
the fact there are over 3,100
whitewater river miles in
the state of Idaho,” she said.
“We started on the Middle
Fork and together we’ve
meandered through a frac-
tion of those thousands of
miles.”
They only make spar-
kling wines.
“They
were
all
inspired by Idaho rivers
and our experiences on
those rivers. Our main
wine, our sparkling Char-
donnay, we call White-
water,” Hailey said. “We
also have a pink wine we
call Runoff Rose, which
is like rivers in the spring
— a bit murky.”
3100 Cellars
Hailey Minder and her husband, Marshall, of 3100 Cellars in Garden City, Idaho.
Another wine is called
General Phunk.
“Marshall’s boat captain
name was General Phunk,
so that’s what we call this
one; it’s a bit diff erent,” she
said. “We bottle it while it is
fermenting, rather than wait-
ing for it to fi nish. Thus it
can be variable, depending
on how the fermentation is
going and how far along it is
when we bottle it.”
With the other wines, fer-
mentation is fi nished fi rst.
“Then we add a specifi c
amount of sugar and yeast
and bottle it. With this one,
the fermentation is in pro-
cess when we bottle it, and
it’s usually a little cloudy
and out of our control,” Hai-
ley said.
Some of their other wines
are held longer and fi nished
diff erently.
“One of them is the same
Chardonnay, but aged lon-
ger and we call it the Eddy
Out. It takes more time, so
like the river it eddies out,”
she said.
Their plan is to always
use only Idaho fruit.
“We take a lot of our
inspiration from Idaho riv-
ers so we want to stick with
the Idaho theme,” she said.
“We are expanding our
profi le; we also make a
Gewurtztraminer and Mal-
visia Bianca, which are
white wines,” she said. “Our
roses are made with sev-
eral diff erent grapes, which
include Syrah, Malbec and
Mourvedre.”
When she and Mar-
shall decided to make their
own brand of wine, Hailey
already had some experi-
ence with the wine industry.
“I’d been working for
Telaya Wine Company in
Garden City. Before that, I
harvested grapes at Walla
Walla and became interested
in the wine industry,” she
said.
She and Marshall have an
estate vineyard in the Eagle
Foothills.
“We planted it 5 years
ago, and last year was
our fi rst commercial har-
vest of fruit. In the begin-
ning we sourced grapes
from other vineyards, and
mostly worked with Saw-
tooth and Skyline vineyards
but also worked with Bitner
and other vineyards over the
years, since our vines were
still growing. We will con-
tinue to use some fruit from
other sources,” she said.
“We have a 10-acre par-
cel, with 5 acres planted so
far. We have a building there
now, and hope to make our
wine there and have a small
tasting room. We’ll probably
plant another one to three
acres,” Hailey said.
Marshall grew up on a
farm in Indian Valley, where
his family grows alfalfa,
timothy hay and triticale.
“He had a farming back-
ground but no grape-grow-
ing experience until he met
me, but he is really good
with a lot of our equipment
and is good with the grapes,”
Hailey said.
Their wine is sold mostly
through a wine club, and
about 10% to businesses,
co-ops, restaurants in town
that want their wine on the
menus, and other consumers.
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