Moonbase Estate Vineyard, Walla Walla Valley

Moonbase Cellars, a small, family-owned winery in Walla Walla Valley, has purchased a vineyard in the valley. The site will provide estate fruit and will eventually be used for the winery’s tasting room.

“We were pretty excited to find some land,” says Moonbase owner and winemaker Drew Pauk. “Location is key, and I think it’s in a great spot.”

The vineyard, which is currently called Pheasant Run but will be renamed Moonbase Estate, is located in the south side of Walla Walla on Larson Road. It is 10 acres, with 6 planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Syrah. The site was previously owned by the Basel family.

This area of the valley has million-dollar views of the Blue Mountains, and the new Moonbase Estate Vineyard certainly has that. The site is not far from Pepper Bridge and Northstar.

The vineyard has a 30×60-foot structure that will be turned into a tasting room and also used for barrel storage and white wine fermentation. It will need extensive work before that happens. Pauk ultimately plans to build a production facility at the vineyard.

“We’ll do it in baby steps,” he says.

Natives of St. Louis, Pauk and his wife, Laine, had an interest in wine that led to them take a variety of certification courses and travel to world wine regions. In 2016, they visited Walla Walla. They were so impressed with the town they decided to move there the following year with the intention of starting a winery.

“It seemed like a well-established wine region but still has an intimacy to it,” Pauk says. “We could kind of squeeze right in. Big areas, I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Upon arrival, Pauk contacted winemakers looking for work. One of them was Richard Funk at Saviah Cellars.

“He said ‘I can get you in the tasting room a little bit. I can get you in the cellar. Harvest is coming up.’ I haven’t left since,” Pauk says. He makes his Moonbase wines at Saviah under an alternating proprietorship and also helps at the winery a few days during harvest.

“Rich has been a great mentor as we’ve started our winery,” Pauk says.

Funk and others encouraged Pauk to take classes at Walla Walla Community College’s Center for Enology and Viticulture. (Full disclosure: I am an adjunct instructor at the college.) After graduating, he and his wife started Moonbase Cellars, making wines in 2019.

A self-described “space nerd,” the name Moonbase comes from an inside joke. “My wife and I always talk about where to go on vacation, and I would say ‘We need to take a vacation to the moon. That’s where we need to go,’” Pauk says. “She would say ‘I would love to take a vacation to the moon. We just need a base up there.’”

At Moonbase, Pauk focuses largely on Rhône-style wines, but also makes Cabernet Sauvignon and other varieties. Moonbase has excellent valley fruit sources that include Seven Hills, Les Collines, Cockburn Ranch, Dugger Creek, and McClellan. The winery also receives fruit from a variety of Rocks District sites. Of note, Moonbase is one of the few wineries in the valley that makes a Rocks District Merlot.

“My whole thing is, find really good vineyards, and then just make wine and go from there,” Pauk says.

While Moonbase intends to use its new vineyard for estate fruit, the winery will continue to source from elsewhere in the valley. Moonbase opened a tasting room in downtown Walla Walla in 2021.The winery currently produces approximately 1,400 cases of wine annually.

Image courtesy of Moonbase Cellars.

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