The Vineyard

Sleeping Dog Wines are created from grapes grown in the Buoy Vineyards, adjacent to Larry & Joyce’s home and winery on south-facing slopes above the Yakima River in Eastern Washington. What began with Larry’s hopeful request to Farmer Bob Buoy of, “Hey, can I pick a few grapes that are left over and make some wine?” has grown into a relationship of mutual respect and admiration for each man’s gift with the grape.

Bob and his crew selectively prune and thin the vines throughout the growing season, working continually to nurture the health of the crop.

Buoy Vineyard

After walking the vineyards for over a decade, Larry and his canine associates have established definite biases for particular scents and flavors that determine which grapes will capture the robust, intense berry flavors that are the signature for Sleeping Dog Wines. These select grapes are then hand-picked and delivered across the road to the winery door.

At harvest, the friends and family of Sleeping Dog are mustered to the crush. The crew hand-sorts and cleans the grapes as they are processed through the crusher/stemmer to ferment in ~200-gallon lots. When the juice is ready, another summons is issued to return for the press.  At the end of the day’s work, all join to share a hearty meal with a few glasses of Sleeping Dog Wines–literally enjoying the fruits of their labor.

Larry & Aurora

Once settled into stainless steel tanks, Larry continues nurturing the young wines as they mature. He maintains chemical and temperature controls, and applies French, American, and European oak at critical points throughout the aging process to achieve the desired flavors. Watching and guiding its evolution (a fancy way to say tasting a lot), Larry ultimately decides when the wine is ready for bottling, then monitoring the wine as it matures, until one day, his opus is debuted.