Founder & fourth-generation Washington farmer Casey McClellan & his wife Vicky began to cultivate an interest in wine and developed a long term vision to make wine from the family farm in Walla Walla Valley.  In the early 1980s, Casey and his family planted the founding blocks of their future winery, 21 acres of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Eight years later, the McClellans established Seven Hills Winery. 

As proprietors of one of the area’s first vineyards, the efforts of Seven Hills Winery have helped strengthen a community that values environmental stewardship to protect the future. For the past 15 years, they have practiced sustainable agriculture in order to be responsible guardians of the land, and currently hold LIVE and Salmon Safe certifications for our estate SHW Founding Vineyard.

Walla Walla is a fantastic area for growing grapes. Formed through thousands of years of ancient volcanic activity followed by glacial slack water deposits from the Missoula Floods, the land nowadays has deep loess soils with a basalt foundation. The soils found here are nutrient-poor and free-draining, which naturally limits vine vigor so that plant energy is focused on fruit development. This highly beneficial soil composition also allows the grapes to be planted on their own roots, thereby producing more authentic varietal traits.

This superb vineyard nowadays produces excellent wines for both the table and laying down.