Joshua West of Elephant Seven Winery
Elephants and wine don’t normally go together, unless you are in Walla Walla visiting the downtown Elephant Seven Winery. It’s in a beautifully renovated historic building that once held feed and horses rather than elephants. Winery owners Joshua and Cheryl West both love music, and a music collective they admire explains the elephant connection. Their winery logo is a small elephant with seven red balloons streaming from its trunk, as if they are carrying the animal along in flight. The logo embodies simplicity, as does the Elephant Seven website that has no photos and very minimal print that looks like it was hammered out with an old manual Underwood typewriter. Both the logo and the website are beautifully minimalist—the essence of simplicity—which is at the heart of Joshua’s winemaking philosophy.
In addition to the logo, the Elephant Seven homepage contains 7 words: Rhone Varietals, Walla Walla, Sense of Place. The words capture perfectly Joshua’s passion and purpose as a winemaker. He uses premier fruit from the Walla Walla Valley AVA to make both white and red Rhone style wines that reflect their vineyard characteristics. This means he adds as few things as possible to the wines so the vineyard voice and excellent fruit dominate on the palate. He uses familiar Rhone grape varieties such as Syrah, Grenache, and Roussane, but also less familiar ones, including Marsanne, Picpoul, Grenache Blanc and Clairette Blanche. Joshua is producing some of the finest Rhone style wines in Washington state, and at very affordable prices.
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