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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 104 WINES&VINES January 2018 M icrosoft attorney Mike Martin wasn't planning to buy a winery when he and a buddy stopped for a quick round at the Wine Valley Golf Club in Walla Walla, Wash., a few years ago. But when he hit an unexpected hole-in-one, the ensuing 19th-hole celebration left an impression. Over time, Mar- tin's appreciation for the region and its wines led him to purchase a vacation home in the low-key wine community nestled in southeastern Washington state. Luck and op- portunity conspired again when Martin met former Long Shadows enologist Ali Mayfield at his housewarming party, leading to the formation of a winery project christened The Walls—the name a nod to Walla Walla's infamous state penitentiary. In short order, The Walls launched an inaugural vintage in 2014, acquired a 20-acre estate vineyard parcel in The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater AVA, purchased Charles Smith's former tasting room and eatery in downtown Walla Walla, and assumed ownership of Whitman Cellars' former winery in the town's industrial wine-production area. Commitment to sustainability "Our main issue that we had with our space upon moving in was that it wasn't environmentally efficient," admits office manager Allison Kelly. "We were racking up enormous numbers initially on power usage, and we really wanted to become efficient. We made quite a few updates before we moved in, including solar panels and updating all of the light fixtures." After closing on the Pine Street production warehouse in spring 2016, The Walls engaged Hays Electric from Walla Walla to install Lithonia 220CRF LED lights in the office areas and Lithonia 235YK LED lights in the barrel rooms, capitalizing on Pacific Power's "wattsmart" incentive pro- gram with its lighting retrofit. The winery tracks usage and savings of the new system with the aid of the wattsmart net-metering program. During the retrofit project, the winery also partnered with Walla Walla Electric to install a rooftop solar panel array on the building's exterior at a total cost of nearly $200,000. Initially, the company attached a 480-volt three- phase solar production meter, a 480-volt three-phase solar KEY POINTS The Walls, a boutique winery in Walla Walla, Wash., retrofitted the interior lighting system in its production facility and installed one of the largest winery rooftop solar panel systems in the Pacific Northwest. Features of the revamped winery include anti-microbial non-slip floors, stainless-steel tanks from JVNW and a basket press from Bucher Vaslin. The Walls produces 3,000 cases of premium wine an- nually and also owns and operates a tasting room/eat- ery/event facility in downtown Walla Walla, as well as a 20-acre estate vineyard in The Rocks District of Mil- ton-Freewater AVA. The Walls Vineyards A new wine company in Walla Walla has transformed the former Whitman Cellars winery By L. M. Archer TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT KATHRYN ELSSER