OFF PAGE ONE
Saturday, July 7, 2018
East Oregonian
Page 9A
WINERY: Force Majeure is growing several varieties of grapes
Continued from 1A
the winery, clearing away
a structure that had been
heavily vandalized since the
building was vacated, Alex-
ander said.
The construction is weeks
behind schedule as Force
Majeure waits for approval
from the state. But when it’s
fully operational, Alexan-
der expects it to produce and
store 5,000 cases of wine.
Currently,
Force
Majeure’s production facil-
ity is located in Woodinville,
Washington, about 20 miles
northeast of Seattle, while
their vineyards are located in
the Red Mountain AVA near
the Tri-Cities.
Alexander said Force
Majeure was looking to
open a new winery in the
Walla Walla Valley, but
weren’t initially targeting
Milton-Freewater.
“It was a very serendipi-
tous circumstance,” he said.
The Pleasant View prop-
erty not only provided them
space for a winery, but the
seller was also offering eight
acres of vineyards adjacent
to the property.
Around the same time,
Force Majeure bought
another 100 acres on the
North Fork Walla Walla
River near Harris Park.
Force Majeure intends
to funnel the fruit from all
three vineyards through
Milton-Freewater, which is
starting to see some growth
in the wine industry after
years of living in Walla Wal-
la’s shadow.
Alexander
said
the
boundaries of the The Rocks
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Winemaker Todd Alexander, of Force Majeure Vineyards, stands among grape vines near the winery’s building
site in Milton-Freewater.
AVA comes straight through
the
company’s
Pleas-
ant View vineyard, mean-
ing Force Majeure can take
advantage of the stony soil
that allows grapes to ripen
later in the season and gives
the AVA its name.
Alexander worked in the
Napa Valley, but given the
high cost of land and Cali-
fornia’s recent penchant for
drought, Alexander thinks
The Rocks has a better
potential for growth.
The district covers 5.9
square miles and dozens
of vineyards, and in recent
years has seen wineries from
as far as Spain purchase land
in the area.
The winery’s three vine-
yards, which Alexander said
are at elevations ranging
from 842 feet to 2,100 feet,
should produce unique wine
flavors.
Alexander said Force
Majuere is growing several
varieties of wine grapes,
including syrah, Bordeaux,
and cabernet sauvignon
Alexander has tasted
wines from all around the
world and is confident in
his ability to sell Force
Majeure’s wines as unique
products.
“We tend to attract the
wine geek end of the wine
drinker (spectrum),” he said.
Force Majeure wants
to eventually make the old
Pleasant View property a
destination in it of itself, but
in order to do that, they’ll
have to renovate the crum-
bling schoolhouse into an
attractive tasting room.
At various points oper-
ated as a middle school and
an alternative high school,
Milton-Freewater Unified
School District Superin-
tendent Rob Clark said the
school is likely about 100
years old.
After the building tran-
sitioned into an alternative
school, the Milton-Freewa-
ter Unified School District
eventually relinquished con-
trol to the InterMountain
Education Service District,
which provided the same
service.
IMESD Superintendent
Mark Mulvihill said the dis-
trict decided to close the
school down when the Mil-
ton-Freewater school system
showed interest in integrat-
ing Pleasant View’s student
body into McLoughlin High
School.
Alexander moved from
Seattle to Milton-Freewa-
ter to launch the new winery
and said he is already start-
ing to feel a sense of com-
munity responsibility for
Force Majeure’s new facil-
ity and land.
When he mentions the
project, some of his neigh-
bors tell him that’s where
they went to school.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
541-966-0836 or asierra@
eastoregonian.com.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Above: A bunch of immature syrah grapes hang
on a grapevine near the winery’s building site in
Milton-Freewater. Left: The Force Majeure Vineyards
will incorporate this old school in Milton-Freewater
into the structure of its newest winemaking facility.
BRIEFLY
Judge rejects
blanket delay
to reunite children
at border
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A
judge on Friday refused to
grant the Trump administra-
tion a blanket extension of
the deadline to reunite chil-
dren separated from their
parents at the border, instead
acknowledging that more
time may be justified only in
specific cases.
The administration said it
needed more time to reunite
101 children under 5 years
old to ensure the children’s
safety and to confirm their
parental relationships. U.S.
District Judge Dana Sabraw
ordered the administration
to share a list of the 101
children with the American
Civil Liberties Union, which
successfully sued to force
the reunions, by Saturday
afternoon.
The two sides will try to
determine over the weekend
which cases merit a delay in
an effort to present a unified
front in court on Monday
morning.The administration
has matched 86 parents to 83
children and 16 are not yet
matched, Fabian said.
The deadline is July
10 for parents with chil-
dren under 5 and July 26 for
everyone else.
Trump’s ex-
lawyer hires
Clinton ally
NEW YORK (AP) —
President Donald Trump’s
longtime personal lawyer
and fixer Michael Cohen
could be sending the White
House yet another warning
shot by adding a close friend
of Bill and Hillary Clinton to
his legal team.
Lanny Davis confirmed
his hiring Thursday, saying
in a statement that he and
Cohen had talked “many
times in the last two weeks”
and that the former Trump
confidant “deserves to tell
his side of the story.”
Cohen, who once boasted
he would “take a bullet” for
Trump, told ABC’s George
Stephanopoulos last week-
end that he now puts “fam-
ily and country first” and
that protecting the president
is not his priority.
Cohen, 51, even took
his change of heart to Twit-
ter, scrubbing mentions and
photos from a profile that
previously identified him as
“Personal attorney to Presi-
dent Donald J. Trump.”
Mexico town
known for
fireworks disasters
mourns 24 deaths
TULTEPEC,
Mexico
(AP) — Grieving emer-
gency personnel in the Mex-
ico City suburb of Tultepec
carried the caskets of four
comrades through the town’s
streets Friday as authori-
ties investigated whether
an attempt to douse burn-
ing fireworks with water
may have triggered further
blasts that killed a total of 24
people.
The four were among
seven firefighters, police
officers and civil defense
workers killed when they
rushed to the scene of a
first blast, only to be felled
by three subsequent explo-
sions. Fifty-four people were
injured, 41 of whom remain
hospitalized.
The town of Tultepec, just
north of the capital in Mex-
ico State, is a place notorious
for deadly fireworks acci-
dents, with at least 70 peo-
ple killed there in less than
two years.
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