Frichette Winery: An Interview with Shae Frichette
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What wines that you are making are you the most excited about?
What are your big goals for the next 6 months, 2 years, 5 years?
Let’s talk about diversity in wine and being the only black female winemaker in Washington
Tell me about who you are and a little bit about your winery…
I’m Shae Frichette and I’m a Southerner, I’m from South Carolina, and I say that because there are some things that I’ll say that you’ll go, ‘she’s probably from the south’ just with my Southern accent. Born and raised there and after college I moved to Southern California where I met my husband Greg. After dating and being married we decided to start a family, and just said you know if we’re going to have a kid we should move closer to our parents. And I thought that meant we’re going to move to South Carolina where I’m from and he was thinking we move to Washington state where he’s from. So you can imagine we just got into a huge argument.
So we did it and it landed on heads, which is Washington, so of course I said best out of five. He didn’t agree to that, and I checked to see if it was a two headed coin and it wasn’t so we left our jobs, packed our bags and moved here with our 7-month old son.
We really wanted to do something that would give us goosebumps and we loved wine so we thought ‘why not learn how to make wine’. And that’s really how the journey started for us. We really wanted to be on Red Mountain and there was nothing for sale so we literally went knocking on doors begging people to sell to us, and after four no’s the folks who owned the property that we have now finally, FINALLY said yes.
After knocking on doors, our quitting time was like 4:15 PM and that way we get to go to a winery and enjoy a glass of wine and lick our wounds from all the doors that were closed in our faces and all the no’s we’d heard from the day.
I mean that’s a good way to get over a few no’s, nothing like a good glass of wine. Ok so you got your land, which is amazing, and how did you go from, ok we have the land to ‘I know how to make wine!’? Did you go to school? Did you apprentice somewhere? Or did you look on Youtube (I’m sure there are people that do that too!)?
Well kind of both. So my husband Greg went through the two year enology certificate program through WSU, because he went to WSU for his undergrad. And we also worked with Charlie Happes who owns Fidelitas, so he took us under his wing, and allowed us to come into his production facility and really get our hands dirty and understand how wine is made. It helped us really determine our style.
So I actually did not go to school for making wine, I went to I guess you could call it the School of Hard Knocks, and so with working with Greg, you know you kind of just get it. There is nothing like learning when you’re in it and you’re working in it, and so that’s how I learned to make wine. And I also love picking the brains of other wine makers. And in our community wine makers are so open, they don’t have secrets. I’ll pop over to winemakers cellar, ask them questions, if there is something I want to learn or know how to make better and they’ve always been very open to sharing knowledge.
Ok so you learned under some amazing people. Now you have two brands of wine, you don’t just have Frichette you also have Sashay, so I want to know a lot about both of these but how did you decide to make two different lines of win, not just one?
So while Frichette is very focused. We decided when we started Frichette that we were going to learn how to make a little bit of wine really, really, good verses trying to make a ton of different varietals that you treat in different ways. And so we decided we would focus on Bordeaux varietals, which lended us six red varietals. So that was just what we were going to do, and I love Bordeaux varietals and I love, love, love Red Mountain, and I went to this event called Celebration of Black Women in Wine, it was in Miami, and I just so happened to be invited there as a guest.
I didn’t hesitate on booking a ticket to go over to this event. At this event there were other women who looked like me, and they were women who were making wine, and they were women who owned wine companies, and I was so inspired because I had never seen other black female wine makers, or black females that had owned wineries. And they’d existed in the US and outside of the US I had just never seen that.
I was so inspired that when I got onto the plane to leave Miami back to the Tri-Cities there wasn’t a second I was on that plane that I wasn’t thinking about what I wanted to do, and what wine would really express me and what message I wanted to share.
So I came to my husband and I was like ‘oh my gosh, I have this plan and I need your help. I have this brand I want to launch it’ll be an express of me, and I need your help with barrel contracts and sourcing of fruit, and he was just like ‘awesome’. And from that moment I became his boss with Sashay because with Frichette, he’s the head winemaker for that brand and so he would provide the work order and I would just go in and see what he wanted to do from how our wines would be moved and touched and I went in and did the work. So we kind of swapped roles which was a lot of fun. He was a great person to have on my team.
Ok so you had this amazing productive plane trip, that’s the most productive plane trip, I’ve never been that productive on a plane ride. I’m going to hold this up cause I think everyone needs to see this beautiful label. Did you design this or did you work with someone else to get it designed?
The story of that label is just, it came together so beautifully well. So I had in my head what I wanted Sashay to look like, before I even, like I said, when those wheels landed in Pasco there was a lot about this Sashay label that I knew, and I knew what I wanted her to look like, I knew what I wanted people to feel when they saw her, I knew what I wanted most of the message of the back to read.
But I didn’t quite know how to go about doing it and there was this young artist in the Tri-cities that happened to be in my tasting room. He said ‘The next thing for me’ because he does these beautiful pieces of art, "the next thing for me I’d love to have my work on a label” and at that time we’d only had Frichette and I was just like oh my gosh maybe I can connect you with someone but for our Frichette’s we’re not changing anything for this label.
Then I went, wait a minute, I have Sashay coming and I was thinking more graphic designer but let’s chat and if you can paint what’s in my head, you’ve got the job. And so we had a two and half hour coffee meeting and I just painted this picture the best I could of what I wanted this to look like, and I mean he came back with what you see on that Sashay rose no changes to it. He took every bit of the expression that I provided and he put that on a canvas and I absolutely loved it. And still do.
He hit the nail right on the head, his name is Chance Watt, he’s a young artist here in the Tri-Cities, and this is just a sample of his work. I hired him to also paint for the Sashay red label and I also think he did a fantastic job with that. I hope I get to work with him again on something else.
Ok, honestly stunning, but that is not the ONLY amazing part of this bottle. I love the back. This little note on the back is really powerful.
How about I read it to you, because these words are for you, alright?
Ok I would not have done it that well!! So how did you come up with that? I think it’s super powerful, it’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever read on the back of label.
Thank you! You know I knew that I wanted some sort of a powerful message that was true for women. That’s what I wanted, but I didn’t know quite how to articulate it. My graphic designer that worked with to make the back of the label he called me up and he said, “I need to know what you want on the back of your label” and I was like great how much time do I have, and he said ‘I need it now.”
So while he was on the phone with me I said look I’m just going to type from my heart and I’m going to send you something, and that’s what came out.
Ok so I have your rosé, $30, from Red Mountain, do you just want to do a few quick notes about the rosé for anyone who might be interested??
I used Merlot, so I the varietal of choice for this wine is 100% Merlot from Red Mountain. And this wine is red fruit driven all the way. To me on the nose it smells like a watermelon jolly rancher, and then strawberry and rhubarb, a little bit of citric, not a whole lot of citrus, that doesn’t jump out at me like sometimes you get that in rosés.
There is some weight on it, I would say this is almost a medium-bodied rosé it’s not as light and crisp as some rosés you may get. I do sit this in a little bit of neutral oak for a few months before I bottle it. I love this wine super chilled. I will put this in the refrigerator for a good 30 minutes before I open it up and I also just sit in a tub of ice so it’s pretty chilled when I’m enjoying it.
I haven’t tried a lot of rosés of Merlot. How did you decide to do a Merlot grape verses some of the other more popular grapes?
Well I wanted to work with some of the growers that I already had relationships with. I worked with a grower, we were already buying Merlot from them for our Red. You know I had never made a Merlot before and I thought about Sangiovese, but I had never worked with that varietal before, and so I think for this one I wanted to almost play it safe with a varietal that I was a little more familiar with and also a grower that I’d worked with before. Where I sourced it from, they do a lot of the Bordeaux varietals, and they also have some Rhone varietals and I thought Merlot would be a varietals that is pretty fun to work with.
And so your previous point with food, the thing about this being a little heavier, since we do focus on reds for our Frichette portfolio, we only make one white wine for that portfolio which is our Sémillon, from Red Mountain here, I also thought about that. Making a wine that on the mouth would also be a wine that I thought that some of our red wine lovers might enjoy.
This one is a little sweeter than off-dry which is very interesting because this ferments in our cold room. Fermentation is really slow on it, and I was like ‘oh if I don’t check it for three days it’ll totally be fine’, and I went in to check the sugar level and it moved so fast. And that’s the thing, just when you think you’re comfortable, and you know your wines they can just do some things where you’re just like ‘woah!’.
How many vintages of rosé have you made so far?
This is the third. So the first one went in a blink I only made like 30 cases of the first vintage, and I mean it went so fast it doesn’t even count. Last year the rosé we released sold out in a little over two months. So it was around a little bit longer than the first. This one, we’re almost halfway sold out and just released it.
You hear that?! If you want this you need to buy it now. I honestly could drink this all afternoon. Switching gears, what wine are you most excited about right now in your current line up, whether it’s on the Sashay side or the Frichette side?
There’s a few from both lines that I’m excited about. I’m excited about our Zinfandel for Frichette because Zin is not a varietal that is very common and there is a little vineyard here that has a few rows of Zinfandel that we kind of just wanted to try out and it turned out amazing. So I’m stoked. The thing about Zin is that it’s not an easy varietal to grow, We tried to source it in 2019 and it just wouldn’t ripen, and so we just kind of had to let it go, and so it’s one of those jewels that sometimes we have it sometimes we don’t and I’m very pleased at how it turned out. A lot of dried fruit characteristics which I’m excited about.
I’m also excited, we’re releasing a Carménère. First time we’re releasing Carménère so I’m super excited about that. I think Carménère is gaining a lot more popularity and they really stand out when they are next to other wines. We had our Carménère last night with some chicken tacos that we got from this cool taco truck in Pasco. It was an amazing pairing I really enjoyed that.
And then from the Sashay. I’m so excited about the Sashay Syrah. I did not plan on releasing that until later on this summer or the fall, and I happened to be on an Instagram Live just kind of trying it and going through the tasting and was like ‘Ok THIS we’re releasing this right now.” So we put that up on the site. I’m stoked about it, it’s the first Syrah that I’ve ever made. I think I’m excited about it because it turned out really well, but I was very nervous about making because sometimes I hear horror stories about making Syrah, it can be a little fussy in production. I was just very nervous about it and watched it really closely, babied it, did punchdowns instead of twice a day, did punchdowns three times a day on it to give it some oxygen and help it move along.
It was in a lot of ways kinds of my baby. My baby has graduated, it’s in the bottle, and I’m just stoked. I’m so excited about that.
So what would be any kind of big goals you have? You could do 6-months, 2 years, 5 years?
My big goal is to open, or to reopen I should say. I just saw from our local paper that our application has been placed on hold which means that we are not permitted to reopen just yet. It was just kind of some disappointing news for us, so I’m very much looking forward to reopening because we’ve been doing some exciting work to our tasting room and to our property. Getting permitted to have our guests enjoy wine in green spaces that were not open before, and I’m very excited about that.
In fact this morning I was out doing landscaping and yard work, which I love that stuff anyways, but I’m very excited about reopening and having guests explore our new space.
When it comes to wine, I was just talking to Greg this morning and we’re finalizing what the 2020 vintage will be. Where we’re going to get wine grapes from, what tonnage we’re going to bring in, you know we’re bringing in the first fruit from our little Estate vineyard here this year. So we’re excited about that, this is year three and this is the first time we’re going to be picking grapes from that vineyard. I was getting goosebumps just talking to him because I was excited.
I will share with your guests something that is a goal of mine that I don’t think I’ve ever shared publicly. You ready for this?!
YES!
Yes. Please do it! I’m sure there is a lot more that goes into it other than just saying I’m going to make a sparkling rosé but I love bubbles so I’m here for it.
So that’s one of the things that is a goal. I would love to make a sparkling wine.
And you’d put that under the Sashay label?
Yes! So I really enjoy having the Sashay rosé and I would also like to have a Sashay and I would also like to have a Sashay sparkling rosé. So the Sashay rosé we’ll still have that but I think it’d be so much fun and I think I’d enjoy making it because I enjoy bubbles.
I mean isn’t half the reason to go into wine to drink your own wine?
Have there been any other major challenges over the past couple months because of Covid-19 and everything being closed? I know I saw you had #SashaySaturday, so are you trying to do some other kind of unique marketing tactics?
You know we’re very blessed in that we still have means of getting our wines to folks. You can still order on our website, and we can still ship wine throughout the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest, a couple East Coast states. At least until it gets to warm because we actually don’t ship during the summer. So that’s been really neat to still have that opportunity to ship wines.
We’ve been hosting some virtual tastings and something we call our Mystery Wine Challenge. Which is really fun, you just buy a bottle of wine, the label is covered, we get on a Zoom call and we just take you through the blind tasting experience. We all reveal the wine at the end, what is the wine you have?! So that’s been a lot of fun.
But the biggest challenge has been to, the word pivot has used a lot during Covid-19, and I would have to say that has to be one of the biggest challenges. Really looking at how do we still do what we do and get our wine to guests and still stay afloat. We really are a small business. Greg and I started this from scratch, there was no, we didn’t come into wine, we left our corporate jobs and we did this with a young family. I think that you see that around our state where you have small businesses, so for us it’s how do we still provide our wines and still stay in business.
The thing about wine too, is there is a long runway. Even with Covid-19, lets say that our revenue is down, now I have to think about the investment that we’re going to make for the 2020 vintage which won’t be sold for two years. That’s where we are. It’s exciting to think about what we’re going to do but at the same time when it comes to where is the money that you put into buying all this fruit and these barrels and the production part of it, for a product that is going to sit for two years and we don’t know when we’re going to open. So the pivoting and really trying to plan two years ahead has been a huge challenge, and just trying to figure out what it is you’re going to do.
The other side of that coin though is that we’re really being pushed to be creative and think outside of the box. I mean I would’ve never thought that if we were open that I’d be doing as much of this sort of stuff, and I love it. I love being able to connect to folks that may not have ever been to my tasting room or may not have any plans to come any time soon but they’re still hearing about Frichette and Sashay and learning a little bit more about what we do here.
Well, I really appreciate you taking the time! So I saw you have a wine club. Is it called anything specific? Is it flexible on bottle type and kind? And how do people join?
So our wine club is all red and we have two clubs. One is called our Signature Cru, and it’s spelled C-R-U. I’m curious to know what people think the reason is that we spell it C-R-U verses C-R-E-W.
We have the Signature Cru and the Reserve Cru. The Signature Cru is our most popular, it’s two bottles of wine four times a year, so essentially eight bottles of wine a year we send to you. Greg and I pick those bottles out, and they are always fun bottles. Usually our Signature Cru you’re enjoying wine before it’s released to anyone else. Like our wine called Punctual which people love is a club exclusive.
And then our Reserve Cru is a case in the spring and a case in the fall. Greg and I curate those wines for the Reserve Cru. That club can customize but usually they don’t want to because we pick some really great wines including wines from our library. And we have a very small library so usually it’s something that’s enough just for that wine club.
I don’t want to take too much of your time so one last question. Obviously there is a lot going around right now about supporting Black owned businesses and you are a Black owned winery, and I think you are the only Black-owned winery that I found in Washington. Which is great but I think there is room for growth and expansion there. I’d love to get some thoughts from you about how you’d feel to see this industry get more diverse and ways we can encourage that other than just buying your amazing wine!
Well I think that when you have industries that are focused on diversity, cause I’ve seen organizations where they look at their organization and they are very heavy with a gender or very heavy with certain race, and those companies really have the mindset that we can be a better company and better to our community if we promote diversity. I’m a part of the Regional Chamber of Commerce and I know that organization has been very deliberate about that, and I can see that they go out and they search for folks who can create a diverse cohort. I think the same thing I’d love to see in our wine industry.
I think the industry has gotten pretty comfortable with the way that it’s always looked and I think with the Black Lives Matter initiative and with a lot of folks paying a little bit more attention to that we’re looking around and seeing that ‘Wow, there is only one Black female wine maker in our state’. And I wonder if anyone had ever even noticed that before.
So I do hope that this is something that while it is at the forefront that it is not something that is kind of forgotten. It’s not something that’s lost. And that we do have other organizations within our industry that just kind of take the opportunity to look around and say ‘we have an opportunity’.
I was inspired at the Black Wine in Wine event that I went to in Miami but you know I was part of that mindset too because I had never seen a Black woman in wine. So there’s room for change, there’s definitely space and I would love to see more people like me owning wineries, being wine makers, leading in vineyards, having wine businesses and wine shops, I just think that’d be amazing.
Not only are you one of the only Black wine makers, you’re a female wine maker and that’s it’s own category in itself. In an industry dominated but white males. So you’re really breaking the mold for multiple different groups so cheers to you.
So those are all my questions! Do you any things I didn’t ask that you want to make sure my viewers know about you? Or any last take aways?
I think that for, and your viewers already probably know this about you, but you took this step, you purchased my wine, you invited me to do this, and I think that says a great deal about you and the way that you see this industry too. So I applaud you for doing something that we’d love to see more folks do, and to show that this industry could be more.
I definitely appreciate that and I think you do a beautiful job. I’m so excited to be a part of your fan base and that I get to see the things that you do. Also get your recommendations too because there is over 1,000 wineries in this state right now and as much as I think I might know them, the reality is you’re probably doing way more research on them than I am! So it’ll be fun to follow someone who is actively seeking these wineries, and actively showcasing wines, and I look forward to being a fan of yours.
You’re going to make me tear up, you’re so sweet. Ok well thank you for that, I’m excited to follow along. I’m opening this one later tonight, I got the Malbec 2017, I’m quite excited.
Well I will tell you if you are up for cooking I have an amazing Moroccan spice lamp stew recipe that goes very well with that Malbec. I have that on our site, feel free to pull it. It’s just a blog post and it has the ingredients. It’s so great with the Malbec.
Alright I will link that, and it will not be from me.
I want to see you make though, I think you’d be great! Come on.
I think you, I mean you said so many wonderful things about my wine skills, I’m going to let you know I’m a really bad cook. Really bad. It’s something I’m working on. I know it’s a weakness of mine, but it’s an area for improvement that I will be continuously improving on.
If I can give you a secret about this Moroccan spice lamp stew, it sounds fancy and it looks amazing, but it is so easy. It really is so easy, you’d be surprised.
Alright maybe I will try it cause if I can be fancy and say look at what I did but it’s not the hardest thing in the world...
Nobody will know!
Thank you again Shae for your time! I am in awe of all you’ve created.
— Chelsey