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Sleight of Hand's Winemaker on How Punk Rock DIY Culture Led Him to Wine
August 28, 2023
When you think about a perfect music genre to pair with a premium Bordeaux-style blend from an independent winery in Walla Walla, indie rock may not be the first thing that springs to mind (read more about the winery in ‘Sleight of Hand Makes Premium Wine With a Vinyl Soul’). But for Trey Busch, his love of music led him to the Pacific Northwest at the height of the post-punk-grunge era, which led him, in turn, on a path to making sought-after, innovative wine that tastes as original as the sounds that drew him there.
“I came down to Walla Walla to visit my friend Jamie, and it turned out his next door neighbor was a winemaker named Eric Dunham,” Busch recalls of that life-shifting first encounter. “Eric was the winemaker and owner of a great winery here, Dunham Cellars.”
That serendipitous meeting led to a lasting friendship, and later, a job offer. Busch jumped at the offer to raise his family in a small town in Washington, and quit his customer-service centric job at Nordstrom for what quickly became an all-encompassing love affair with wine.
But Busch says the connection between music and wine is much deeper than mere personal happenstance.
“I’ve always felt like music and wine were very similar in a lot of ways,” Busch notes. “You know, there’s tens of thousands of bands, and there’s tens of thousands of brands out there in the wine world. We’re all fighting for the same pool of customers.”
To stand out and live in a way that reflects his personal values—a key M.O. for any punk rocker and independent winemaker worth their salt—Busch says growing, making, and selling wine requires the same skills as being in a band.
As music and wine lovers, it’s hard to figure out which ones are worth your time and money. Busch acknowledges that the struggle for authentic connection can be equally difficult on both sides of the equation, which is where his connection to music becomes such an integral part of their wines.
“It’s that DIY ethic of the old punk band that would drive themselves around in a van, city to city, just to make a living to put their music out there,” he says. “That’s how we do the wine business.”
Busch spent two years working with Eric Dunham, and then joined and helped launch Basel Cellars as the winemaker. After five years at Basel, Busch was ready to run his own project—as a winemaker and owner.
Busch had the skills, the vision, and a business plan, but he didn’t have a partner or the deep pockets that would afford a solo leap. But two of his customers at Basel, Jerry and Sandy Solomon, had become his friends over the years, and their admiration for his winemaking and their own ambition to get into wine quickly led to a partnership that has worked for all of them. (Jerry, after three decades as a real estate attorney, had the resources to help launch the winery—and he knew Busch could teach him whatever he didn’t already know about wine.)
Busch taught Jerry how to make wine, and today, they make all of the picking and blending decisions together. Jerry directs logistics and operations, and Sandy handles winery travel logistics and events—and the two Sleight of Hand Cellars dogs, Tessa and Chance.
They all have an instrument to play. The arrangement is ideal for Busch, who gets extra time in the vineyard as a result.
“There’s so much I love about it,” he says. “Just being out in the vineyards, being out in nature, having a job where you’re not stuck behind a desk. I get to spend a lot of my time in beautiful vineyards around Washington State. Not just Walla Walla, but in Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Horse, Seven Hills, Columbia Valley.”
Being out amid the vines, and deciding “when to prune and when to pick, leaf dropping, all that good stuff,” sets the stage for the nearly 9,000 case-run they put out annually.
“In the world of wine, that’s just a drop in the bucket,” Busch explains, even if it “sounds like a lot.”
All of that hands-on time in the vines means that post-harvest, Busch is leagues ahead of larger operations, who “meet” their grapes as they come in. He’s already prepared, and planning out which lots will land in which fermenters and later, barrels, weeks before picking time.
That artisanal approach to small-lot winemaking simply isn’t possible at larger operations, and the result is more individualistic wines that reflect the vintage and the terroir with greater authenticity. It's a great place to visit even if punk rock isn’t your cup of tea. From experience, we recommend enjoying Sleight of Hand's hospitality on a typically gray February afternoon, accompanied by a Bob Marley LP and Traci Garrett's descriptions of Sicily's underrated wine and baroque architecture.
Clearly, the winemaking trio has the growing and production end covered. But actually getting that wine into the right hands is another matter. As eager as they are, they know that you and other serious wine aficionados need a place to get their wines and those from other hard-to-find wineries..
To get where he, Jerry, and Sandy want them to be, the DIY punk-rock ethos comes back full circle. The Sleight of Hand team loves selling out of the tasting room—which by, the way, has a collection of 3,000 vinyl records featuring a who’s who of rock, punk and grunge legends—but they needed a partner outside of Washington who could tell their story with as much authenticity and integrity as they could.
“Sommsation is the missing link outside of my tasting room, where I don’t have the ability to tell our story,” Busch explains of their decision to partner with Sommsation. “I see it as extension of my brand.”
For Busch, it’s our devotion to independent, high-quality brands—and people—that clinched it for him when choosing a full-time partner to pick up the outside-of-Walla-Walla-DIY-promotion slack.
“It’s not just broad reach that we’re going for,” he says. “We’ve built our brand customer by customer. And Sommsation is doing the same thing, just extending my reach to places I can’t go.”
Ready to taste Sleight of Hand for yourself? We’ve got you covered.
A Preview
Sleight of Hand Cellars, The Psychedelic Syrah, 2020: You’ll find aromas of roasted meats, floral citrus blossoms, and tobacco. On the palate, notes of plum, green herbs, bacon fat, earth, black pepper spice and mouth coating tannins.
Sleight of Hand Cellars, The Conjurer Red Blend, 2020: This wine is loaded with red and black fruits, with aromas and flavors of bing cherries and spicy plums, accentuated by notes of tobacco and tea leaves. The Cabernet Franc really takes on a lead role in this wine, adding perfume and spice, while the Cabernet and Merlot provide the powerful mouthfeel and core of fruit.
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