April 22, 2023
Kyle MacLachlan is not just another celebrity with a vanity wine project. He takes his Pursued by Bear wines as seriously as any character he’s portrayed, which is why after 18 years, his brand is still around.
MacLachlan agreed to sit for an interview before the grand opening of his new tasting room in Walla Walla on April 14. I found him to be as knowledgeable as he is passionate about his wines.
That commitment needed proving over and over again in the retail wine trenches. MacLachlan described walking into stores and “seeing the look on the face of the owners. They were thinking, ‘It’s just a celebrity. Let’s entertain him as a favor to the distributor.’”
That look, according to MacLachlan, often changed after a few minutes of talking and tasting.
“I tell people I’m from Yakima and have good wines I’m passionate about. After a while, they’re like, ‘Where did this guy come from?’” MacLachlan said.
The actor’s long wine journey to Walla Walla begins with road trips shared with his father, Kent. MacLachlan described his father, who died in 2011, as a “wanderer” who enjoyed “little searches” on all the roads less traveled.
“We’d hop in the car and drive the lower valley to explore little towns. We’d check out roadside fruit and vegetable stands because my dad loved to cook. He also liked wine, although it was second to gin for him. So wine became our little dance,” MacLachlan said.
One particular father and son winery visit in the 1990s provided an epiphany. McLachlan said that while he was already drinking Leonetti Cellar and Woodward Canyon Winery wines at the time, a humble tasting room located inside a Quonset hut-like building in Zillah, Washington, changed his wine life.
Wineglass Cellars, which closed in 2016, was a small winery owned by David and Linda Lowe. “I tasted their Elerding Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, and remember thinking, ‘Yeah, this is really good.’ That sent me on my way to learning all I could about eastern Washington wines,” MacLachlan said.
The educational journey led MacLachlan to Eric Dunham at Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla. The two became fast friends, with Dunham attending MacLachlan’s wedding to television producer and executive Desiree Gruber. When MacLachlan decided it was time to make wine, he shook hands with Dunham to make his first wine, a 2005 vintage cabernet sauvignon.
The working partnership with his friend ended when Dunham died in 2014. Another Dunham Cellars winemaker, Daniel Wampfler, picked up the slack. When Wampfler moved to Abeja in 2016, MacLachlan’s project went with him.
But what about the name of MacLachlan’s winery, taken from a William Shakespeare stage direction in “The Winter’s Tale?” Wikipedia claims that “The Wonder Years” star Fred Savage came up with the name.
“I have no idea who put that in there, but it follows me around,” MacLachlan said. Let’s set the record straight once and for all.
MacLachlan admitted that, at first, he wasn’t 100% sold on Pursued by Bear. When his wife took him to dinner at her friend Steve Martin’s house, MacLachlan asked the famed actor what he thought of Pursued by Bear for a winery name.
Martin liked it, and as MacLachlan said, “that’s a pretty good focus group, so the rest is history.”
Just before people started streaming through the doors for the Pursued by Bear tasting room’s grand opening, MacLachlan entertained a few quick questions.
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