Ep 075: Interview with David Merfeld of Northstar Winery

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2013

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week we’ve got a different kind of show for you! No M.C. Ice, but instead a terrific interview with winemaker David “Merf” Merfeld from Northstar Winery in Walla Walla, Washington.

This 43 minutes will give you a great perspective on the region through the eyes of a winemaker. Merf tells us all about the differences between the appellations, the grapes that thrive in the region, and why Washington is so unique.

We hit on everything from soil, to wildlife, to distribution of Washington wines. A great perspective that we hope you enjoy! Thanks for listening! We can’t wait to hear from you!

If you’ve got a question you want us to answer, post it here or on Facebook or Twitter we’ll include it on the show!

____________________________________________________________________ Podcast music: “Café connection” by morgantj / CC BY 3.0, ©2009 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)Map: Licensed under the Creativ [...]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for
0:08.0	downloading Wine for Normal People Radio,
0:10.0	the podcast for people who like wine,
0:12.0	but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:14.0	I'm Elizabeth Schneider, a certified Silmaier and certified specialist of wine.
0:20.0	And I'm MC Ice, just a wine-loving normal person. This week we got something a little different for you.
0:35.0	Sadly, no MC Ice, but we do have a very special guest, David Murph Merfeldfeld who is the head winemaker at North Star
0:45.6	Winery in Walla, Washington. While we were there visiting I had the opportunity
0:50.2	to sit down with him such a nice guy and such a huge Walla
0:54.8	advocate and a hell of a winemaker. He gave a great perspective on the
0:58.8	area, on viticulture, on the future of the region, and I think you're going to find it really
1:03.2	really interesting just for a little background Murph as he's known to everybody is
1:07.2	actually from green Iowa but he wound up in the northwest when he had a special
1:12.3	interest in becoming a brew master for craft beer
1:15.8	operations that were popping up in the 90s.
1:18.9	He moved from that fermented beverage into wine and in 2001 he took the post of his head winemaker at North Star.
1:25.6	North Star is managed by Chateau St. Michelle the very large winery that is located in
1:31.5	Woodinville. But this division basically runs autonomously.
1:34.6	Murph makes all the wines, makes the growing decisions, and he says that he's
1:38.6	pretty autonomous. Very interesting guy. Very fun interview and I think you're going to learn a lot from the winemaker perspective
1:45.2	about what exactly is going on in Washington and Walla Walla specifically.
1:48.8	You'll hear a lot about different regions and about why Murf uses the grapes that he does from the different areas around Washington.
	...

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