The Man Who Saved Washington Wine

Ted Baseler has been CEO of  Ste. Michelle for eight years and in the company’s leadership for a quarter of a century. In that time he has brought the wine world’s attention to Washington state.

Five years ago, on a stunningly clear night in rural eastern Washington, the burgeoning wine industry that dots the rolling hills of the Walla Walla valley faced ruin. “We have the near-perfect climate for wine, other than this periodic arctic blast we can get in the winter, a very rare circumstance,” says Marty Clubb, owner and winemaker at renowned L’Ecole No. 41 winery. “That January, we had one of those plunges.” In a very few hours, the temperature hit minus 15 degrees and wiped out the 2004 grape harvest. “We had basically no crop. We were facing a catastrophe.” As the truth sank in, though, the telephone unexpectedly began to ring at wineries throughout the valley. On the line was Ted Baseler, president and CEO of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, the 8,000-pound gorilla of the state’s wine business. “He said, ‘I want to help,’” Clubb says.

And Baseler did, supplying grapes to save the season for at least a dozen wineries. Trey Busch, then winemaker at Basel Cellars Estate Winery, made half his wine that year from Ste. Michelle grapes. “Ted was reaching a hand out to all the wineries. I can’t imagine anybody in Napa Valley doing that,” Busch says.

Baseler remembers: “Many growers and wineries didn’t have any grapes at all. So I started calling around, saying ‘if you’re out of grapes, we’ll get you some if you need it to survive.’” Ste. Michelle intended those grapes for itself, but for decades, the winery has made it a priority to broadly boost all Washington wines. “We could have used the grapes, but this was more important,” Baseler notes.

“I am, in fact, one of the people that Ted personally called,” says Clubb, at L’Ecole. “This is a story that supports an even bigger story, which is that Ted and Ste. Michelle have always looked at the big picture, over and above their own interests.”

Deep Roots

Chateau Ste. Michelle’s lineage dates to 1934, when the Pommerelle Wine Co. and the National Wine Co. were formed after the repeal of Prohibition. Baseler has been the CEO for only the past eight years, but his roots—and influence—in the company stretch back a quarter of a century. He was recruited in 1984 from the advertising world, where he serviced the account of what was then a smallish Woodinville winery

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