Washington Quality, for Everyone.
So many of the things we need to buy these days end up being of subpar quality, either in materials or in craftsmanship, and we want to do our humble best to rectify that. Here at Recusant Cellars, we value good old-fashioned hard work, traditional craftsmanship, and the highest quality we are capable of producing.
This means starting with the traditions handed down to us, putting our hearts into mastering our craft, enriching our knowledge and abilities, and producing wonderful results. We get our hands dirty in the engines of our tractors, we walk through the vineyard counting buds in the spring, and we carefully watch the ripening of every apple on our trees - and we bring the same love and attention to the making of each of our wines. If that means we need to taste them over and over to get them just right, well, we're willing sacrifice ourselves to get that done!
Enjoy Handcrafted
Our goal is to bring you fruit fresh off the trees and wines cool from the cellars, and to give you the assurance that it is possible to have not just food and drink that you will love, but also to get them from a company that doesn't support the destruction of our world and our culture. We want to enable a more wholesome life, for you and for everyone!
Now, you can enjoy the benefits of buying from a small, "local" company - the sort of mom-and-pop-shop where you know the family who works there, where you run into them after church and ask how the kids are - from anywhere in the country! We take advantage of the conveniences of modernity to enable YOU to be a part of this more wholesome life we're building: so now, when you're curious what's going on on a farm in the Pacific Northwest this time of year, you know of a family that farms there - and seeing their latest post is like catching up with an old friend. When you need the best red wine to serve guests for dinner, you know of this small Washington winery that makes your favourite! When you want to feed your family the freshest, juiciest apples and the grocery store just isn't cutting it, you know a guy!
A Unique Winery
When you buy from Recusant Cellars, you're not just buying an exceptional quality product, you're buying from people with principles. We hold ourselves to a very high standard, consistant with our Catholic faith. We value the wisdom and traditions of the past, the cultivation of loving and cohesive families in the present, and the flourishing of a healthier society in the future - and we run our business like we mean it.
Recusant Cellars is never open for business on Sundays or Holy Days of Obligation, does not give ANY money to abortion, and is run by a small, devoutly Catholic family. Many wineries are OWNED by Catholics; Recusant Cellars is RUN according to a truly Catholic way of life.
Meet The Family
Here are the faces behind our story, and the hands making every product we sell.
Jason
Jason is the head of the family: father of Victoria, John, Michael, four more kids (who aren't involved in the business…yet!); and a proud grandfather. He's officially our Winemaker, and directs the winery work himself, but he also oversees all the work on the family farm, and is our primary tasting room host. So when you visit us, you might get a chance to hear some of the many stories he has to tell - about local wonders, the wine industry in the '90's, chemistry, history, the misadventures of starting a business, the joys of raising a family and seeing it go into another generation - stories about any and every interesting thing. He spends his days happily makes wine, growing fruit trees, and watching videos of cows with his grandson (and unhappily doing paperwork!)
Victoria
Victoria is Jason's eldest daughter, and the first of his kids to work with him in the winery. She's behind the scenes of many aspects of the winery, from putting labels on wine bottles to setting up the online store - she specializes in writing and editing, though, so most of what you're reading right now was written by her!
John
John is Jason's oldest son, and now the father of his own two boys. He primarily takes care of the day-to-day farming operations, but he's also learning how to work with the wine itself, and he loves every minute of it. As a teenager, he wanted nothing more than to move out to the middle of nowhere, where no one could bother him, and spend all day, every day, being outside. And where better to do that than on a farm? He now lives his dream with his sons: they all get to spend every day driving tractors, fixing engines, and working in the bright sun and fresh air. (People still bother him, though.)
Emily
Emily is John's wife (and the very best sister-in-law!), and handles most of the visually creative and fun things for us. She swore as a kid that when she grew up, she would finally get away from farming. She would never marry a farmer! Then she met John and fell in love. Now she's happily married to a farmer, lives on a farm, and posts on social media about the joys of farming. She lurks around every corner, taking fun videos of our daily work all around the farm and winery - so the next time you see a tantalizing picture of our delicious fruit on Instagram, or a ridiculous reel of someone struggling with the pallet jack, thank Emily!
Michael
Michael is Jason's second son, and the most recent recruit to the family business. He helps out wherever we need a hand, whether it's picking apples or welding tractor parts, but he also understands how computers and such work (which none of the rest of us can boast), so he's our IT guy. He takes breaks from his town job in customer service to help solve our problems, answer our questions, and ask us, "Have you turned it off and back on? Have you updated it in the last year? Have you closed a tab…ever??"