Brennon Leighton: Efeste's Tattoed Artist

Photo by Julien Perry

The Watering Hole: Efeste Winery, 19730 144th Ave. N.E., (425) 398-7200. WOODINVILLE

The Atmosphere: The tasting room, built in 2008, is a sleek, super fun and casual, come as you are, we can't wait to pour you our wines-type of space that truly feels like a living room. You know, if your living room was equipped with a pizza oven, a plasma TV, a lighted wine bottle display case and a private events facility inside a barrel room. It leans towards masculine, but ladies will love it, too. During the holidays, its personality is even more beaming, trimmed with trees, sparkling baubles, gauzy lights, and an air of holiday cheer that you usually only find by crawling inside a big bottle of booze.

The Barkeep Winemaker: Brennon Leighton. He's been the winemaker at Efeste since 2007. And just a few months ago, one of his wines, the 2008 Jolie Bouche Syrah, ranked #15 on Wine Spectator's list of the top 100 wines of 2011. In 2009, another one of his wines, the 2006 Ceidleigh (KAY-lee) Syrah from Red Mountain made the list as well. So, you know, he knows what he's doing. But the man himself? His story is even more impressive.

Photo by Julien Perry

The first thing you'll notice about Leighton (if he's not bundled up) is his tattoos. He has a lot of them. They span the length of his neck to his forearms. And those are just the ones I could see. They serve, perhaps, as a symbol of how he's left his mark on society since growing up in the dregs of Santa Cruz.

He moved to Seattle twice. The first time was in 1990, "I needed to get away from a few things," says Leighton. He squatted in a building off of Rainier Ave. for eight months while he worked at Piecora's. After saving up enough money, he moved into a house in the Central District. "This was when Seattle University was like an island in the middle of hell. The soccer field used to be some sort of dump and it was quarantined as hazardous waste, but there was no fence around it. There were just these warning signs. They had this big pile of trash and I remember being so drunk one time I climbed up on this pile of crap and fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, staring at the stars just going, 'Oh my God. What am I doing?' That's when I started to get my shit together."

"Before I turned 25 I never thought I was going to live to see 25, so when I hit that age I totally flipped out about everything. I broke up with my girlfriend and quit my band all in one week. I turned my world upside down. I went back to school and started taking classes at Seattle Central."

It was around that time that Leighton got a job downtown at The Brooklyn, which is where he discovered wine. "I got totally turned onto wine and got super geeky about it. Then I got a job at [the now closed] Bandoleone. I actually put their initial wine list together. One of the owners was a French chick who was fucking nuts and her and I got into it one night and the next day I was fired. After that I bartended at Palace Kitchen. And then by that time, I was finished taking classes at Seattle Central and transferred down to UC Davis in Sacramento."

Leighton spent years earning his degree from their prestigious Viticulture and Enology school. He came back to Seattle in 2001 to work as the Enologist at Chateau St. Michelle. "Within the first two months the assistant winemaker quit and so I basically took that role, along with the Enologist role, through the first crush. And then right after, the winemaker quite so all of the sudden for like eight months, I'm like everything. My learning curve was so huge."

He came to Efeste in 2007. "I felt this was a good avenue to have opportunities which, for me, include becoming one of the best winemakers in the world."

A quick note: Efeste is pronounced F.S.T. It's the first letter of the last initial of the three owner phonetically spelled out: Ferrelli, Smith, Taylor.