Sleight of Hand Cellars

Native yeast before the blend

Native yeast starts the work for Trey Busch, winemaker at Sleight of Hand Cellars in Walla Walla. He keeps the cellar close to the fruit, with native malolactic fermentation, lees aging until final blending, and restrained oak where the Rhône varieties are concerned. Busch came to the bench by a route that still matters to the house: University of Georgia first, then the United States Navy near Seattle, then years reading customers and presentation as a buyer at Nordstrom in the Seattle area from 1992-2000. The move to Walla Walla came through a wine business role at Dunham Cellars from 2000, where vineyard, cellar, sales, and community sat near one another. At Sleight of Hand Cellars, the role joins those pieces under one daily discipline. He is co-founder as well as winemaker, so the choices do not stop at fermentation. The bottle, the tasting room, the allocation, the cellar habit, each belongs to the same hand.

Syrah with the vineyard left visible

The cellar’s stated method leans toward minimal intervention, not as a pose, but as a way of keeping site in the foreground. Sleight of Hand works in the Walla Walla Valley AVA with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Grenache, and Chardonnay, though Syrah carries a large share of its identity. The house makes several Syrah wines, and even keeps a club for drinkers who want only Syrah in their annual shipments. Psychedelic Syrah comes from Stoney Vine Vineyard in The Rocks, an AVA Busch has called the most unique in North America. That statement fits the cellar program: native fermentations, native malolactic, lees kept in play until blending, and little to no new oak on Rhône varieties. The intent is not to polish the wine into anonymity. The hand is there to decide when to leave the vineyard alone.

A quiet room around the pour

The tasting room works at a smaller scale, with private tastings and a quiet, intimate pace rather than a crowded pass. The setting is rustic and vineyard-bound, but the room is more studied than casual: a place for education, glass by glass, with the cellar’s choices close enough to discuss without performance. In that kind of room, the wines do not need a loud frame. Syrah can carry its savory depth, Cabernet Sauvignon can hold its line, and the Bordeaux-style blends can show the patience asked of them. The mood suits Busch’s own position on the work: let the vineyard show itself, then make the finished wine age-worthy enough to keep speaking after release.

Archimage and the house hand

Recognition has come to the winery, including notice from Seattle Magazine among Washington’s next-generation and cult-leaning producers, and the cellar sequence continues. Ferment without forcing. Age on lees until the blend is ready. Keep the fruit at the center. For Sleight of Hand Cellars, that discipline gathers most clearly in Archimage and in the Syrah drawn from Stoney Vine Vineyard.