Doug Frost

The Path

Breadth across wine, beer and spirits is the throughline here. Doug Frost has built a career around reading drinks closely and moving between categories with the kind of fluency that comes from paying attention to texture, balance and finish. In Walla Walla, that range lands in the day-to-day work of Echolands Winery, where he has served as Chief Executive Officer since 2017. The craft is not only in making and judging; it is also in writing. Frost has described himself as someone who “Drinks for a living and lives to write about it.” That phrasing fits a trade where sensory memory has to be turned into plain language. It points to a practice built on notice-taking: what an aroma does, where a palate tightens or opens, how one expression differs from another.

The Work Today

At Echolands Winery in Walla Walla, the Chief Executive Officer role places Doug Frost at the point where production, evaluation and direction meet. For a business shaped by vineyard and cellar rhythms, that means staying close to what is being made while also keeping the larger picture in view. The work asks for judgment across wine, beer and spirits, and for the discipline to match that range. “Retirement age” has not become a cue to step away. Frost has said, “Even though my wife and I are at retirement age, I don’t ever want to stop doing the things that I love.” Read in trade terms, it is a statement about continuity: keeping hands in the work, staying engaged with the daily habits of tasting, writing and making decisions that keep the drinks world moving.

In Their Words “Even though my wife and I are at retirement age, I don’t ever want to stop doing the things that I love.”