It was 2014. Craig Leuthold, the co-founder of Maryhill Winery with his wife, Vicki, was lying in bed with what he describes as “one of the worst fevers I’ve ever had as an adult, just soaking the sheets.” The phone rang. The call was from the 415 area code. Leuthold says he thought it might be a vendor who needed assistance, so he answered. The caller told him that Maryhill had just been named “Winery of the Year” at the San Francisco Chronicle International Wine Competition, one of the more prestigious such competitions in the country.
“I was barely able to get through the conversation,” Leuthold recalls. “I kind of nonchalantly said, ‘OK, thanks for calling and letting me know.’ Honestly, I was thinking it might be one of my friends in the industry calling to punk me. After I hung up, I thought the guy on the other end must think I’m some kind of weirdo, so I handed the phone to Vicki and asked her to call back the number that was on there. A few minutes later, I heard her shrieking in the other room: ‘Oh, my God!’”
It was the first and — to date — only time that a Washington winery has been so honored…