CHAOS TO THE CORE.
Our home in the Columbia Valley was carved by cataclysmic ice age floods that tore across the Pacific Northwest, transforming the landscape, and blanketing the valleys with silt carried from hundreds of miles away.
As the last ice age came to a close, the glacial dam holding back Lake Missoula would periodically burst, releasing a 400-foot wall of water that tore across the Pacific Northwest at up to 80 miles an hour. The floods devastated everything in their path and reshaped the landscape all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The floodwaters scoured soil and sediment from the land as they went, pooling and eddying through what is now the Columbia Valley. When the water ultimately receded, the valley was blanketed in a deep layer of nutrient-poor but well-drained silt. Pair that with Eastern Washington’s reliable sunshine and epic temperature swings, and you have near-perfect conditions for growing grapes. And so, ancient lakes become modern vineyards.
EMBRACE THE FORCES BEYOND YOUR CONTROL.
Cataclysm was born from the understanding that things don’t always go to plan. Great upheaval is an opportunity for a new beginning.
20,000 years after the floods, this wine is true to the land and the hands that made it—classically drinkable but surprisingly complex, it is a testament to why Washington State has become one of the most exciting wine-growing regions in the world. Like nature, it balances power with grace and reminds us that our world is in a constant state of reinvention.
