Meet Shaun and Amy, of Madrone Cellars on San Juan Island! You can find their delicious wines and ciders – featuring island fruit – at their Friday Harbor tasting room on First Street.
When they met in 2014, Shaun was about to move to Lake Chelan and Amy was returning to school in Bellingham. They both had lived on the island on and off for four years, and separately they both knew that they wanted to return and live here permanently. Shaun already had the dream of owning and operating a winery on San Juan Island. The island has a very similar climate to the Champagne region of France, and Shaun’s dream is to grow varietals specific for sparkling wines. Now that they also produce cider, it also works in their favor that the island is so abundant in fruit!
From Shaun and Amy: “We started with nothing except Shaun’s background in winemaking and Amy’s stubbornness to make things work. We had no capital or investors. We worked full-time for the first four years, and we would spend the evenings and weekends working at the winery. Amy still works full-time at Salty Fox Coffee, and when she is off work you can find her at the tasting room or working from home. The pandemic forced Shaun’s hand – he was laid off during 2020, and instead of finding a new full-time job, he decided it was time for a leap of faith. Shaun has been working full time for our own business for a year now, and it is one of the best decisions we have ever made.
One of the reasons we love owning a business on San Juan Island is because of all the stories similar to ours. The islands are full of entrepreneurs who had nothing but an idea and a stubbornness to make it work. We love sitting and sharing stories with the like minded souls of this community.
The San Juan Islands are amazing in terms of the abundance of food that is grown here. Over the last two years, we have sourced the majority of our fruits and apples from San Juan Island. We do not own property, which prevents us from growing our own fruit at the moment. However, we have teamed up and worked with numerous local farms and residents.
In 2020, we planted 600 cider apple trees with Madeira Farms. We already source products like currants, hops and aronia berries from Madeira, but we will also be sourcing a large percentage of our cider apples once the orchard comes to full production. In addition to Madeira Farms, we source pears from Mitchell Bay Farm, raspberries from Aurora Farms, apples from Dancing Seed Farm, Barn Swallow Farms, October Farms, New Hannah Farms and local residents who have old growth orchards.
In the next month, we will be planting a local vineyard with Saltwater Farms. We are very excited to have local grapes again, especially since we will practice biodynamic and organic farming. This vineyard will be in full production in three to five years.
Our winery and cidery is located at October Farms. We renovated an old farm building into a winery back in 2018. October Farms is quite large, and we share the property with Island Haven Animal Sanctuary. All of our wines and ciders are produced and bottled in this space, which we love sharing. Since we share the property with the animal sanctuary, we offer tours and tastings by appointment only. These private events can include barrel tastings or wine and cider tastings. Appointments can be made by contacting shaun@madronecellars.com.”
Any favorites among your wines and ciders? “Both of us love the Blueberry Dessert Wine, (now sold out), which we worked with Redwing Farm to produce. We cannot wait for blueberry season – we will be at least doubling production of this fruit wine! Another all-time favorite is our Perry. The Asian Pears sourced from Mitchell Bay Farm are out of this world, and they create a beautiful sparkling Perry. It won a Gold in the 2020 Cidercraft Awards, and we think this next vintage will be even better!
What are some of your goals or hopes for your business in the next few years? “Our number one goal and dream is to purchase land, and plant a biodynamic and organic vineyard and orchard. We will continue working with local farms, but in addition we want to have our own space that we can farm and expand our business. We will outgrow the winery at October Farms within the next two years, so another benefit of land would be the opportunity to build a winery that fits our production demands.
In 2019, we doubled our wine and cider production. We had a very successful summer, and knew that we were going forward with opening a tasting room space. All of this led to the understanding that 2020 was going to be our biggest year of growth and change. In a way, 2020 was our biggest year of growth. Not in the way we were thinking, but it gave us time to reflect and learn lessons.
We went forward with opening our tasting room in Friday Harbor, and opening day was 4th of July. We felt a little insane for continuing to push forward, but we are stubborn and creeping forward is better than stopping completely. Although the summer season was drastically slower than we had hoped for in 2019, looking back it was a blessing in disguise. We had a summer to ease into this change. The pandemic offered us an opportunity to get comfortable with our new tasting room, to train employees efficiently, and iron out the details. Don’t get us wrong though, we are ready for a busy summer season. We are already planning on doubling production again this fall!
We love it here. It is our home, and we want to make our dreams align with the dream of growing old on San Juan Island.”
You can find Madrone Cellar products at their downtown Friday Harbor Tasting Room, located at 40 First Street. Starting Memorial Day Weekend, they’ll be open Wednesday – Monday, 12-6pm. You can also find their wine and cider at Kings, Marketplace, SJI Food Co-op, Salty Fox Coffee and many restaurants in Friday Harbor, including Coho Restaurant, Westcott Bay Shellfish Co, Duck Soup San Juan and the Friday Harbor House.
