Pepper Bridge Winery

Excellent setting and very attentive staff in the tasting room. Although the tasting room seemed quite full when we arrived, the staff was quick to get us started tasting their excellent wines. I was so impressed with service I complimented (Katie) on how helpful everyone was. Not long after that, (we were sitting next to the entrance/​exit) a kind gentleman passing by asked us how everything was a if we were enjoying ourselves. This was the GM Norm! Because I own a retail business (Center Street Gold & Silver) I just had to ask o him how he was able to hire and train such wonderful staff. He told me his secret, instead of me sharing it, I suggest you should go have your own experience there and learn firsthand. Darn sure you’ll enjoy the place!

Setting is most unique and made for creating great times. …the deck around the tasting room, in the midst of a working vineyard, and some excellent wines make it superior. Wines are the star. …on the high end for quality

Pepper Bridge, the older sister to Amavi, is focused on the more traditional California varietals and the tastes are very comparable as well. The tasting experience was only enhanced by the views of the vineyard in every direction.
Friendly and knowledgeable servers helped us through their selection and provided us ample information to make our choices. The only negative I have here is the limit of 3 wines with our tasting fee. And it may not be three different wines but two years of the same varietal. I would have preferred to taste their entire lineup for a little more fee. This is the only reason I downgraded from a 5.
A great experience worth your time!

As you drive outside downtown Walla Walla to Pepper Bridge you to get to venture into the actual vineyards themselves. I love that the Pepper Bridge tasting room is located on the estate vineyard, and the tasting room has a beautiful patio and overlook of the Walla Walla vineyard countryside. Pepper Bridge is an acclaimed winery, and has many accolades. They are definitely the priciest place we went too, the cheapest bottle was $ 50. I don’t mind an expensive bottle, but it better be phenomenal or stand out in some way. We went through their tasting, and everything was good, but it wasn’t great, I have definitely had better. Out of the tasting that day my favorite was the 2011 Trine. The staff were friendly, but came off as pretentious. I just didn’t have a desire to linger long.

If you’re looking for a great cab, this is the place to go. A must-​visit winery surrounded by their vineyards.

A group of us went wine tasting (15 ladies in all, it’s like herding cats) and stopped at the Pepper Bridge winery. We decided to not do the tasting but purchase two of their wonderful wines to taste on their deck. It was a gorgeous day, the sun was out, we grabbed our snacks (cheese and crackers) from the cars and had a wonderful time. Pretty place, nice atmosphere.

Being from CA, we like big wines. If you like that style, you will like this place. We weren’t going to visit it as we usually like small, boutique wineries, but we visited their sister winery, Amavi, and they said we should try it. The grounds are stunning. The wines are very bold and very good. We ended up joining the wine club.
Definitely worth a try.

We have been wine club members for several years and finally took advantage of the members tour of the winery this weekend. We were thrilled to have the owner, Norm McKibben, lead the tour for the six of us. He took us through the state-​of-​the-​art facility and described every step of the process with obvious pride in his staff. His personal stories made it feel like we were in the know and part of Pepperbridge. The winemaker, Jean-​Francois, happened to be in the tasting room at the end of our tour and he took the time to chat with us. What a great team.
We have always enjoyed our Pepperbridge wines but now we can see why — much pride and talent goes into their production.

Great Wine, crabby employee
We just returned from a girls’ weekend in Walla Walla and we all agreed that this was one of our least favorite wineries. The location is gorgeous and the wine is truly wonderful (albeit with a $ 10 tasting fee for three wines). However, the gal behind the counter made us feel like we were really inconveniencing her and she just gave us all the impression that she just didn’t want to be there. So the whole experience there just wasn’t great, which is really too bad.

You have to see when a winery is designed correctly and you have a top notch crew in the winery and tasting room. Gravity assists in making great wine, this is a three story/​level winery, fewer pumps needed. We also got to the first computer optical sorter in use, it blew all the crud, jacks and bugs one way and the perfect grape berries into the bins to crush. PBW makes very good wine, a little pricey but worth it.

Want a fantastic big Washington red? Then this is the wine and this is the place! You are going to have fun and enjoy the wine in either Walla Walla or Woodinvile! Save money in your budget while touring WW — because you are going to want to take a few bottles of these reds home with you — cellar for a special occasion!
Additionally, we were lucky enough to have met the wine maker Jean-​Francois Pellet he was gracious and a lot of fun to talk with and really made the trip enjoyable!

I was at Pepper Bridge Winery about a month ago with my boyfriend and adored it! We were referred to by a friend of his who told us it was one of the best red wines he’s had and that he even belongs to the wine club! Anyone that was that enthusiastic about a bottle of wine definitely convinced me of a visit — and I wasn’t disappointed.
The drive in is gorgeous (I didn’t find it difficult to find because there a signs posted throughout the drive) and the tasting room and winery is nestled into the hill among their vineyards. When we walked in the tasting room it smelled delicious and were greeted by two ladies that genuinely seemed happy to see us.
It was a $ 10 tasting fee for 3 tastings — a Merlot and 2 Cabs. Some of the reviews said $ 8 — oh well — I don’t mind, I paid $ 15 — $ 30 for tastings in Napa.
WOW! … I couldn’t believe I was drinking Merlot… and liking it! They were delicious! And The Cabs? To die for! The wines are Very Robust and thankfully not over oaked — I hate that.
The service was great! there were only 2 other people besides us in the tasting room so we got great service! They were so sweet and we were chatting for a while even after the other couple left. I mean, these girls were spectacular! The told us a little about the winery, what I could pair with my wine, which tasting rooms we should visit and where to go for dinner! They even poured us an extra something ‘special’ and one of them even called and made an appointment for us to go to a different Winery on the West Side called Long Shadows (Very Good by the way)!
I ended up getting a bottle of 2007 Reserve based on their recommendation even though I didn’t try it. It’s the most I’ve paid for a bottle of wine but I plan to set it down for a couple years and open it on a special occasion :)
All in all a very good experience. Good wine, good company, good ambiance.

This was a really nice winery to visit with a great view and hospitable people– and a dog. I’m a sucker for any winery with a dog! The wine was ok but all cab and merlot and since it was the first place we stopped, a little too big for that time of day. The guy (i forgot his name) in the tasting room gave me a card to go to Marcus Whitman Hotel Vineyard Lounge where some of their wines and others their winemaker makes are featured. I ended up going there that evening and Jean-​Francois happened to be there. Nice guy! The only set back on this winery was that it had all these weird detours around it and the person who was driving us kept having to turn around and go a different way after accidentally driving onto private property. It’s in the middle of hills and orchards/​vineyards so we couldn’t see it until we got up to it. It was a nice place though and I would recommend a visit.

My girlfriend and I visited several wineries in the Walla Walla region this past weekend and unfortunately Pepper Bridge was the least impressive. The gentleman working behind the counter made the experience extremely un-​personable and he was almost snobby. Reminded me of being in a Napa tasting room (except lacking the quality of product). The wines were decent… nothing i would pay that price for. There are much better cabs and merlots out there for half the price.
The property is beautiful, but if i want to see beautiful properties, I go to Napa. We were in Walla Walla for the wine. Coming from both my girlfriend and I who are in the wine industry, I would forgo this place and hit up some of the other gems in this area (Dunham Cellars, Woodward Canyon, Grammercy, Reininger).

Pepper Bridge is one of the more known labels in Walla Walla. I have had them at many dinner parties. They make a good bottle of wine.
BUT — they prices are way too high for the quality. Walla Walla is a value wine region, where a $ 40 — $ 50 bottle of Cab or Blend is top notch (in my opinion comparable to a $ 80 — $ 100 Napa bottle (when drunk within 5 years from vintage).
The grounds are nice, the cheese plate was nice, but not blown away. Go for some of the gems!

I just went to this winery in Walla Walla because it was storied as one of the best, and I had tasted their wonderful wines at their Woodinville tasting room. The visit went better than I had expected.
To get to the tasting room, you have to wind through their estate vineyards, which was like dangling a carrot in front of me. It was absolutely gorgeous to drive through their vineyard and drive up to their tasting room. The tasting room sat atop of a small plateau, which allowed me to look at the expanse of Walla Walla valley from a 360 degree view. If you are lucky to go on one of those sunny days, it is breathtaking. If you are from the western part of the state, the feeling of the sun beating down on you during such a nice moment will make you want east.
The tasting room was spacious, classy, and inviting. Unbeknownst to me until later, several of the winemakers were standing around the tasting room when I walked in. I was fortunate enough to meet Tim, one fo the winemakers. Tim generously explained to me the history of the winery, the philosophy behind the winemaking, and of course, the details of each wine I tried. Most impressively, however, Tim gave my girlfriend and I, and our 6 other friends, a fantastic tour of thei facilities. We saw everything from their machines to their tanks, and most notably, their caves, where they age their wines in oak barrels. At the end of the tour, we all walked away feeling pretty fortunate to have stopped at one of the most première wineries in the state of Washington. The wines were to die for, and after spending 7 years in the bay area and drinking Napa Valley wines, I can say that Pepper Bridge’s reds can go toe to toe with anything you can find in California.
Needless to say, stopping here is a must if you are ever in the Walla Walla region. My only regret was that I could not get their winery dog to let me pet it.

Solid winery with good wines; but the pricing was high — prices began at $ 40 and went swiftly up. The tasting room charged $ 8 per person — the highest we saw in Walla Walla.

I visit Walla Walla at least once a year, and make a point to come to Pepper Bridge every time. The vineyard is absolutely gorgeous and picturesque. Pretty much every winery in WW that I’ve been to uses Pepper Bridge grapes in their Merlot and/​or Cab. Pepper Bridge wines speak for themselves — they are exquisite. I’ve been fortunate to get a tour of their operations and it is immaculate. Reviews below seem put off by their tasting fee. I think its worth it, personally. The pours aren’t stingy, for one. For two, they have a deck you can sit outside and soak up the sun and a view of the vineyard. Plus, I recommend you put that $ 8 toward a bottle. I’m sitting on their ’04 Merlot, ’05 Cab, and ’06 Merlot.
Oh, and my boyfriend just proposed here, and they helped set the whole thing up. So maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think so.

(Disclaimer: This review is stale, we visited almost two years ago.)
I never really got to know you, Pepper Bridge. Your tastings weren’t that spectacular, the staff wasn’t that informative, and your prices kept me from taking a gamble on seeing how you age. Maybe next time.

I wish I could write this review in French; it would sound so much cooler. Or more cool. What ever. There’s quite a few nice wineries to visit while you’re on the south end of town (see my list) and this is definitely one of them. Beautiful setting. Rustic tasting room. Friendly, personable staff. The wines are consistently elegant, earthy, and complex. I get a bit of tobacco off them. The winemaker — Swiss, by the way — finds pencil lead. Five stars if they offered more wines for the $ 8 tasting fee or lowered the fee to the more prevalent $ 5.
Thad has written a great review. Unfortunately, the tasting room employee who poured for him tainted his experience. That’s unfortunate. I’ve been in several times and have always found the staff to be savvy and polished yet unassuming, just like the wine.