GLM Wine Co. is a hidden gem in the local wine scene

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Housed in a converted garage at 1678 Boblett Street, GLM Wine Co. serves wines for the weekend connoisseur.

The husband and wife duo, Tom Davis and Tracey DeGraff, own the winery that is only open on Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. The wines are created in-house, and customers can sample them in a rustic space.

The couple has been making wine in Blaine since 2002. Davis first started as an amateur winemaker in 1990, collecting grapes from vineyards between southwest Oregon and B.C.’s Okanagan Valley that he would use to make wine for his friends. In 2002, Davis made wine from Yakima Valley grapes that he said was good enough to convince him to start a winery.

GLM’s wine-making process starts in autumn by gathering eastern Washington grapes, which are then transported to the winery to be smashed in the parking lot. The wine goes through a crusher/destemmer before fermenting. Once the grape skins are separated by a winepress, the wine sits from fall until winter. The yeast and any suspended solids slowly sink to the bottom, so that the wine can be “racked” (transferred) off the “lees” (sediment) in the spring.

Before being sold, the wine is aged in French oak barrels for two years. French oak barrels are more refined compared to American oak barrels, Davis said, because they integrate with the wine in a subtler way to make the wine more complex and elegant.

“Unlike making beer, you have one shot with wine,” Davis said. “From the day you crush the grapes, you’ll regret this or that because you can’t go back. You’ll have to wait another year.”

GLM’s first wine, a vintage from the 2002 season, sold in 2006. The winery now sells four wines: two reds, one rosé and one white.

Davis said the winery sets itself apart by labeling the color index on its wine bottles, which Davis said is an objective measurement for the quality of red wine. A beam of ultraviolet light is shined on a diluted sample of the wine to determine the color index. “You know what you’re getting as a red wine in terms of how full-bodied it is,” Davis said.

“The Denier” and “Deluge” are two wines that recently won double-gold from the Seattle Wine Awards, meaning every judge scored the wine as a gold. “The Denier” is a 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon, a $29 bottle from Columbia Valley, Washington, that won the award in 2019. It stands out for its slight acidity. “Deluge,” a 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon, won in 2017. The $35 wine was made from grapes that Davis said came from the best season he’s seen since starting the business.

The winery’s rosé is dry and sparkling while the Sauvignon Blanc is dry and crisp with French oak that gives it more mouthfeel and complexity than people are used to, Davis said.

The winery was one of the first creators of what they call Enrobed wine, which results from the fermentation of red grape skins, like that of Cabernet Sauvignon, in the juice of a white grape like Marsanne.

“It combines all the flavor of what would be in a white wine with almost all the flavor of what would be in a red wine,” Davis said. “There’s a million possible combinations of flavors you can create.”

Davis, who works at a B.C. printing company during the week, got his start in the restaurant industry from his first job as a bus boy at The Keg, a Canadian steakhouse chain. With tips from that job and his later bartending at upscale hotels, Davis started buying nice bottles of wine that catalyzed his interest in wine production.

The winery started next to the old Blaine airport before moving in 2009 to its current location across the street. The current location is decorated to the winery’s theme of the Glacial Lake Missoula Flood, a cataclysmic flood that covered eastern Washington several times near the end of the last Ice Age.

“Those were the biggest floods ever. We want to make a wine that’s like that, that’s massive,” Davis said. “Our wines are uncompromising.”

The winery plans to expand production within the next year. It currently sells 150 to 200 cases per year but hopes to raise that number to 350 cases. Adding food to the winery’s menu is also on the agenda, Davis said.

GLM Wine Co. is served at Drayton Harbor Oyster Company and occasionally by Blaine-based sommelier Amberleigh Brownson. 

“Given our very little rinky-dink operation, I think we make wines that are easily among the best in Washington state, even though nobody knows it,” Davis said.

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