Weathereye "Hillfighter" 2019 Red Wine, Red Mountain, Washington State

The last name Myhrvold tends to mean something to anyone in the tech world as well as to anyone who considers themselves a really serious foodie. Both of those groups know Nathan Myhrvold, who was Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft between 1996 and 2000, after Bill Gates bought his software company. Nathan went on to pursue a culinary degree and create a famous and groundbreaking set of books entitled Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.

Despite being as savvy and successful as his brother, Cameron Myhrvold has kept a much lower profile. Cameron helped his brother found the company Microsoft purchased, and would go on to found several others. As a long-time fan of Washington state wines, he jumped at the chance to buy 360 acres of land high up on Red Mountain in 2004 when it came onto the market. There was only one problem. The vast majority of the acreage was far above what most people considered the ideal plantable zone for grapevines, and part of the property even fell outside the boundaries of the Red Mountain AVA.

So for 10 years, nothing happened. Eventually, Cameron connected with viticulturist Ryan Johnson, whose previous pedigree included the famed Ciel du Cheval Vineyard, Cadence Winery, and Force Majeure.

For a full year, Ryan wandered the hillside by himself, mapping out sites and making plans for what he increasingly believed would be a very special site, and one that might, with the right approach, allow for more plantings than he or anyone else might have thought possible. Along the way, Ryan would paint a vision of what he wanted to achieve, and those who didn’t run screaming from the sheer insanity of the project saw a chance to create something magical. WeatherEye was born.

They brought in winemaker, Todd Alexander, one of a select few in Washington with 100-point wines under their belt. Todd cut his teeth and rose in prominence in Napa Valley. He worked on production teams at Plumpjack and CADE, before becoming winemaker at Bryant Family Vineyard. Todd moved his family north to become winemaker at Force Majeure and to start his own project called Holocene.