SNOHOMISH — The first thing you notice when you park your car outside Furion Cellars is the music.
That’s not winery music. What cheese pairs best with Syrah and brooding alternative rock?
This isn’t your typically winery, and Micole Miller isn’t your typical winemaker.
Dressed in black with a mop of blond hair framing dark glasses, he’d look more natural with a guitar than a Bordeaux glass.
“It’s all music, art and wine,” Miller said. “I want this to be edgy. Every winery you go to is so stuffy.”
Not Furion Cellars. Located in a warehouse in Snohomish, the winery has a small tasting room and a whole lot of atmosphere.
Miller ran the winery out of the south Everett home he shares with his family for two years until the oak barrels overwhelmed the garage. He found the winery’s new location while working his day job doing business installations for Comcast.
There’s just one thing that bothers him about the new location: the high, unfinished wall that makes up one fourth of its exterior.
It needs a little something.
Graffiti, maybe,
Graffiti has been a bit of a distraction for Miller lately. It’s what an upcoming vintage will be named, for one.
And he’s already had a local artist paint an iconic image he’ll use to promote the winery: A raven clutching a human skull against a blood-red background.
“He asked me what I liked,” Miller said. “And I said, ‘Well, I like ravens, skulls, darkness.’ ”
The atmosphere is context for the wine-making process, Miller said. Just like the oak barrels in which wines are aged, they take on qualities from other influences, too.
The labels displayed in Furion Cellars’ tasting room show that — and that influences can be diverse. Vato was named after a Snoop Dogg song. Vinea Cruor means blood of the vineyard. Les Parfums is a tribute to Coco Chanel.
Miller worked at Barneys New York, a high-end fashion retailer, for several years.
“Labels mean everything,” he said. “I learned that right away.”
Furion Cellars’ business is growing, but it’s still a side project for now. Miller’s free time is spent delivering cases to restaurants, grocery stores and wine shops around the north Puget Sound region.
Later this summer, he’ll make the trip to Walla Walla to select grapes for this year’s vintage.
Then the real work begins. With the help of his wife, Kathy Bozich-Miller, he’ll crush the grapes and ferment and age the wine — a two-year process that ends with bottling.
It takes time, patience and a fair amount of instinct. Eventually, Miller would like to make Furion Cellars a full-time gig.
“Dead serious about this,” Milker said. “Dead serious about the wine. The wine always comes first.”
Read Amy Rolph’s small-business blog at www.heraldnet.com/TheStorefront. Contact her at 425-339-3029 or arolph@heraldnet.com.
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