Joel Mackay of MonteScarlatto Estate Winery
After a traditional career of teaching math, coaching, and building homes, Joel Mackay became a “renegade” by purchasing vineyard land on Red Mountain in 1994. He had grown up on a farm but never had any formal training in viticulture or enology. He learned by doing and listening, planting a 10-acre vineyard in 2007, and offering his first vintage of MonteScarlatto wines in 2011. The name means scarlet mountain in Italian, chosen to honor his mother’s and close friend’s Italian heritage. Other close friends recognized Joel’s renegade nature, and thus his sports bar in downtown Spokane is called the “Renegade Room”. At both the Renegade Room and the 10th hole tasting room of the 9-hole golf course on Joel’s Red Mountain property, visitors can taste the range of MonteScarlatto’s diverse wines. The Renegade Room also offers craft beer, cider, and Mediterranean and Italian inspired bites.
MonteScarlatto Estate Winery offers many unique wines all made with estate fruit. The Rosé is made with Cabernet Franc grapes, picked at the perfect time for a bone-dry wine with lots of acidity. It’s the perfect wine for summer sipping, while playing a round of golf on the estate course that has never been parred. Barbera and Carménère are grape varieties rarely seen on Red Mountain, but both are growing in Joel’s vineyard. In fact, Dawn’s Bikini Barbera is one of the winery’s most popular wines. The interview below reveals Dawn’s identity and why she appears on the bottle in a bikini. Don’t miss MonteScarlatto’s Chilean blend—a unique blend of equal parts Carménère, Syrah and Malbec that is bold and well balanced. These wines and many more are all available both in Spokane and on Red Mountain, as you’ll learn from this interview.
Listen to the Interview: