Pix
July 26, 2022
Send a note to the generic email address listed on wine brand Pursued by Bear’s website, and there’s a decent chance that Kyle MacLachlan, literally Kyle MacLachlan, star of “Twin Peaks,” “Sex and the City,” and other iconic film and television productions, will be the one actually who responds to you.
“Wine is pretty much my full-time job until acting kicks in,” he says. He explains that even when he’s on a film shoot — like for some upcoming work in Australia — he has to spend all his off time doing online stuff for the brand. “I don’t have a GM running things. It’s just me.”
And that’s exactly why he’s worth talking to. In this world where every celebrity now has their own celebrity wine, MacLachlan is one of the few with a passion for wine, who truly cares about the quality of his brand, not just grabbing cash from a willing marketplace.
Today, his Pursued by Bear, started in 2005 with a couple hundred cases of Cabernet Sauvignon, has four labels, including a Syrah and a Rosé. MacLachlan, who now works alongside winemaker Daniel Wampfler, claims there were a few reasons he finally decided to get into the wine business for himself.
How it started
First and foremost, he was curious about what the process was like to actually make the wine he loved. He was likewise intrigued by the idea that good wine was being made in his home state and it would be a lot more economical than starting a wine brand in Napa; growing up in Yakima, Washington, on the site of a former orchard, his lawyer father had been what MacLachlan describes as a “gentleman farmer” who had a passion for wine.
“My rationale was it would give me a chance to get back home to visit family more frequently,” he says. “My dad was getting older and I thought, jeez, I’d like to see him more.”
Finally, he felt like his successful acting career had put him on a constant New York-to-Los Angeles cycle that he wanted to escape from for a bit.
For his premiere vintage, MacLachlan would use fruit from the same Yakima Valley vineyards used by Dunham Cellars, whose wines had made a big impact on him. He was so impressed, that he got the wines made at Dunham Cellars. The brand’s name would be a nod to Shakespeare’s most oddball stage direction, from the third act of The Winter’s Tale.
“It had really started off as a hobby. I was pretty innocent, pretty naive. I just wanted to make a few cases and not really think about it. But as I got into it, I kinda liked it. I enjoyed meeting people in the wine business,” says MacLachlan, who recalls his early days of traveling around Manhattan in a taxi with a case of wine and an invoice book, trying to get restaurants to bring in Pursued by Bear.
Luckily, many restaurateurs seemed to really like his wine in this era before every single celebrity had a wine. So MacLachlan submitted a bottle of his 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, its first vintage, to “Wine Spectator.” He kind of forgot about it until he was doing an event at Beaver Creek ski resort when he spied a copy of the latest issue. Thumbing through it, he was startled to see his wine had scored an impressive 91.
“I had a weird freak-out moment because that’s a pretty legitimate score!” he says. “I can’t tell you the reviews for any of my movies or TV shows. But I’ll never forget where I was when I read that.”
Later, when Dunham winemaker Daniel Wampfler went on to Abeja Winery, Pursued by Bear moved with them, where they are made today.
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