Piquenique Wines is the project of Tess Bryant and Niccolo Coturri. Through their engagement with a number of historic orchards and vineyards in the San Juan Islands, the pair create wonderfully distinct ciders and wines while seeking to preserve the agricultural traditions of the area and celebrate the farmers who live and work there.

In their own words:

Here on the islands, we have the vast expanse of the blue sky, the red madrones, the Cedar and Spruce. We plant vines, and fruit trees, and vegetables in patches cleared between nettles and salmonberries. We grow plants that benefit from the short, warm season, that thrive on long July days, and temper as September sun drops quickly and rain arrives. We collaborate with farmers who’ve known these seasons for decades longer than us, absorbing their lessons to create something new, together.

The San Juan Islands is an archipelago in the north-west of Washington State, situated in the Salish Sea between Seattle and Vancouver. Based in Oakland, Tess has been importing Australian wine into the States since 2018, introducing the American wine community to the work of such local luminaries as James Erskine, Kyatt Dixon and Monique and Tim of Manon Farm. Nic is a fourth-generation winemaker who has previously worked with his family’s Sonoma Mtn Winery. In 2020, the pair collaborated on their first vintage of Piquenique.

The wines are, for the most part, sparkling, and are made with organically grown fruits including grapes, apples, pears, quince, plums, peaches, blackberries and medlar. In addition to their own plantings, Tess and Nic source fruit from a number of homestead farms on the archipelago. The fruit includes both heritage genetic material as well as unusual varieties suited to the local climate. As of the start of 2023, the pair have planted 100 apple trees, two acres of hybrid grapes, and have begun farming five acres of vines. In spring of 2023 they plan on planting 30 quince trees and 40 pear trees. Each planting is brought to the islands “with the intention of breaking past the unsustainable world of monoculture vinifera”.

Among the farms that Tess and Nic work with are: Blue Moon Farm on Waldron Island, incorporating elements of biodynamic agriculture and permaculture principles to farm vegetables, berries, and apples on decomposing sandstone overlooking the Salish Sea; The Inn at Ship Bay on Orcas Island, farmed by Geddes Martin, who in addition to farming fruits and vegetables for his restaurant inn is a renowned oyster farmer in the area; Oak Knoll Farm, who raise sheep on the islands and with whom Tess and Nic are collaborating on new apple orchards plantings, which will provide shade and feed for the animals on the farm as well as fruit for the wines; Lopez Island Vineyards, San Juan County’s oldest vineyard and winery and its only organically farmed vineyard, planted by Brent Charnley and Maggie Nilan in the decomposing sandstone soils of Lopez in the mid 1980s - now managed by Tess and Nic; Midnight’s Farm, also on Lopez Island, with apple trees dating back to the late 1800s; and a number of other utterly inspiring farmers in the area.

Picking, processing, bottling and labelling is all done by Tess and Nic. They also take the photographs which are printed on the labels, which in turn are printed by a 100-year-old print business in Seattle. Bottles are made from 65% recycled glass on the west coast, and are reusable. Labels are printed without plastic additives to be removable with hot water.