From exporter to pioneer estate: the history of the Hedges
Hedges Family Estate goes back to Tom Hedges and his wife Anne-Marie Liégeois, who comes from Champagne. Their career did not begin in the vineyard, but in international food trade — with pineapples, bananas, and potatoes. Through this network, they ended up in Taiwan in the mid-eighties as exporters of wines from California and Washington. The first Hedges label was created in 1987 under the name Hedges Cellars, and the very first customer was none other than the Swedish state wine monopoly, Systembolaget. Washington State had only about fifty wineries at the time.
In 1989, Tom and Anne-Marie bought a 50-hectare piece on the then barely known Red Mountain near Benton City and immediately planted 40 hectares of Bordeaux varieties. The decisive impetus came from a visit to Vinexpo in Bordeaux, where they were made to understand: without your own land, you are nothing. In 1995, they built their Château winery in the middle of the vines. In the same year, their Three Vineyards Red Mountain made the leap into the Wine Spectator Top 100. In 2005, Hedges Cellars officially became Hedges Family Estate — a name that has been the program ever since: daughter Sarah Hedges Goedhart manages vinification as head winemaker, son Christophe Hedges is responsible for global sales.
Biodynamics as a principle, not a marketing message
The conversion to biodynamic viticulture began in 2008 — consistently and without compromise. In 2011, the first two vineyards received Demeter certification; by 2021, all five estate sites totaling around 120 hectares were certified. Hedges was thus one of the first wineries in Eastern Washington to implement this standard across the board — and produced the first Demeter-certified Cabernet Sauvignon in the state. In parallel, the estate holds CCOF certification for organic farming.
Biodynamics here means: no synthetic plant protection, manual labor from pruning to harvest, biodynamic preparations according to the lunar calendar, free-range chickens for natural pest control, ten percent of the estate area reserved for wild plants. In the cellar, Sarah Hedges Goedhart works exclusively with spontaneous fermentation — no cultured yeasts. The goal is clearly formulated: let the Red Mountain terroir speak, do not shape it.
Dark fruit, structure, and an unmistakable profile of origin
Red Mountain is the smallest AVA in Washington State — a geological ridge at the eastern end of the Yakima Valley, formed by ice-age flood deposits. The soils are nutrient-poor and barren, the days long and warm, the nights cool. This results in concentrated berries with a firm acid structure and ripe tannins. The wines from Hedges show this clearly: cassis, dark cherry, blackberry as a fruit base, plus notes of sage, dried herbs, cedar, and black pepper — a spicy depth that Cabernet Sauvignon from warm locations often lacks.
The range extends from the accessible CMS Red Blend (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah) with lively black fruit and medium body to the estate wines such as the Red Mountain Blend and the varietal Cabernet Sauvignon, which show the full structural power of the site. Those looking for Syrah will find it in the DLD — a wine from the craft of Sarah Hedges Goedhart, who completed her winemaking training at Washington State University and previously worked on biodynamic estates in Provence and Sonoma. All estate wines are 100% estate-fruit from the five own sites.
