Flying Fish Wines

Flying Fish Merlot is crafted with a desired style in mind. For the inaugural vintage small parcels of fruit were selected from several vineyards throughout the Columbia Valley. By blending fruit from different vineyards, the winemaking team at Big Fluke created a well-balanced, fruit expressive wine, with a nuance of oak that demonstrates the outstanding quality of Merlot available from the Columbia Valley. Each vineyard in the final blend contributes important aspects to the finished wine.

The image on the front of the bottle is a replication of Northwest artist, Blaine Billman’s painting. The team at Big Fluke loved the image the first time they saw it and felt it was perfect for this wine for two reasons. First, it is a very good representation of traditional Northwest art tying back the wine to its Washington heritage. And second, it is a Sockeye Salmon. These salmon migrate up the Columbia River to spawn, traveling past several of the vineyards used to create Flying Fish. The name Flying Fish was chosen based on the graphics Blaine has so elegantly created.

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More About Flying Fish Wine

All of the vineyards in the blend receive very little rain during the growing season, giving the vineyard owners perfect control over the vines vigor through irrigation. This strict vineyard control combined with the northerly latitude, which gives the vines an average of two additional hours of sunlight per day during the growing season, is a perfect combination to produce great, varietally correct Merlot.

Unlike Napa Valley or Sonoma Valley in California, Washington’s Columbia Valley appellation is quite large. This region offers tremendous differences in microclimate and gives our Big Fluke winemaking team an incredible palette from which to select grapes for the final blend. It is by taking advantage of these differences that allows Flying Fish Merlot to achieve concentrated mocha, vanilla and blueberry aromas along with a very deep purple hue.