GREG KOENIG – has been making wine with the Williamson family for 15 years. We are very fortunate to have such a great partnership with a very talented winemaker.
Greg Koenig on what sets our grapes apart. “The Williamson Vineyard has been the backbone of some of Idaho’s best wines for 15 years, including my own wines and the ones made at other wineries. The site is perfect – just the right slope, soils, and exposure. The combination of a great natural site with a family that knows how to farm really well makes it one of the most important vineyard sites so far in the history of Idaho’s viticulture.”
Greg grew up in Idaho, and was fortunate to have been able to live in Austria and Italy for a few years, where his interests in architecture and agriculture combined to plant the seed for a future love of the wine business. After graduating from Notre Dame with a degree in architecture, his hobby of wine making quickly morphed into an idea that he could practice this as a way of life. Koenig began making wine in 1995 with the idea that he could re-create some of the great wines he had experienced abroad here in the Sunnyslope District, using local Idaho fruit. In 1998 Greg Koenig partnered up with the Williamson family to transform the grapes from their vineyard into delicious wines!
Greg considers himself a relatively low-input winemaker, he likes to let the vineyards show their distinct flavors shine through in the wine. Typically he encourages our whites to be fruit-driven and balanced, while he finds that our reds are intriguing when the fruit is very ripe and rich in texture. Koenig is old-fashioned in his use of barrels. With all the new technology available to wine makers, he still believes that fine red wines must be made in traditional small oak barrels. It’s expensive and time-consuming, but well worth the effort in the layers of complexity that can be gained. While our growing region is similar to conditions found in the Rhone Valley in France and parts of California Greg studies many different wine-making styles. It’s his quest to find Idaho’s own niche in the wine-world.