David Layton
Our winemaker, David Layton has spent more than twenty-five years tasting and collecting fine wines from around the world. Although trained as a Civil Engineer specializing in water and waste treatment he moved quickly into marketing and management. Easily bored with the corporate world he quit to own and manage a small bottled water company in El Paso Texas. A few years later this business was sold and he moved on to Boston, MA working for an ultra-high purity water filtration company. It was there, with a lot of worldwide corporate travel, that he fell in love with fine wines. The challenge of finding a wine that could elicit upon tasting that favorite exclamation, WOW!!, continues to this day.
After moving back to the Northwest and operating his own High Purity water treatment equipment and services company for over ten years, (still collecting and tasting wines), he sold the business to a large Corporation. After managing their Northwest division for a few years he retired to concentrate on wine, (and golf), full time.
Since the goal was to taste as many different wines as possible, as soon as possible, he chose to start a retail wine shop. In 1999 he opened “Water to Wine” in Gig Harbor, WA specializing in fine wines and champagne. Open only three days per week, he could spend the rest of his time searching for the very best wines. Through distributor sales efforts, trade warehouse tastings, and winery direct sales he was able to taste over 200 wines per month for the next three years. More importantly, his palate became fine tuned to recognize specific characteristics in wine that were desired by his customers. This extensive training of the palate is the key foundation upon which his winemaking “style” preference is built.
Visiting Walla Walla Wineries and tasting their new releases for possible additions to the wine shop exposed David to the possibilities in Walla Walla for new vineyards and wineries. The new Enology and Viticulture Program at Walla Walla Community College was just getting started and so the Nelsen family sold the Gig Harbor home, the boat, and the wine shop to move into a historic Victorian home built in 1865. David’s wife and daughters Michelle and Melissa embraced Walla Walla and the beauty of the area. David went back to school and two years later graduated with a degree in Enology and Viticulture.
David received his hands-on winemaking experience starting with Walla Walla Vintners where, as a student, he was part of a small group who made Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chardonnay in the fall of 2002. He has since been Assistant Winemaker at Nicholas Cole Cellars for almost two years and crushed and fermented wines at a number of different wineries in 2003 and 2004. He has had the fortunate experience to work with many winemakers in the area over the last few years.
The good news is that making wine is easy! The difficulty is making a truly extraordinary wine, and having the palate to recognize early in a wine’s life that you have it. Even if you are successful one year in making this “wonderful” wine, the challenge of doing it every year is rarely achieved, especially when relying on just one vintage’s production.
Our first out-of-state wine bar is in Dallas, Texas.
At Ensemble Cellars we believe that by taking the very best from each vintage and blending carefully, we can achieve our goal of releasing a wine every year that is truly extraordinary, using three vintages to make “THE WINE”.