A new Spokane winery hopes to open its doors here Memorial Day weekend and will release its first wines during the annual Mother's Day Spring Barrel Tasting event May 7-9.

John Caudill, who owns the winery, Overbluff Cellars, with his wife, Lynnelle, managing director of the Davenport Hotel, says the new winery is remodeling a building at 620 S. Washington where the former Cobblestone Bakery baked its products. The structure, which Overbluff Cellars has leased, is behind a building on Washington that once housed a bed-and-breakfast. The winery will have its combined barrel storage-tasting room and its fermentation room there, with its offices on the second floor of the building.

During the Barrel Tasting, the winery will release three 2007 cabernet sauvignon wines, under its Reserve, Duality, and LaTour labels, as well as its 2009 Vixen viognier, says Caudill, who is the new winery's winemaker. Because its own building won't quite be ready, it will pour its wines at the Lusso Hotel here during the Barrel Tasting.

The winery produced 251 cases of wine in its first-year of production in 2007, then made 500 cases in 2008 and 800 cases last year, Caudill says.

Typically, it takes three years after a crush of grapes to make red wines and age them sufficiently so they're ready for release. The Caudills have produced their wines in an industrial space here so far, but will move production to the winery's new location.

They number each bottle of their red wines.

In the future, Caudill says, "We'll be somewhere between 800 cases and 1,200 cases a year" in terms of production, a level that he says would be associated with a boutique winery.

"We want to make enough to have options, to source grapes from several vineyards, and to keep complete control" of the winemaking process, Caudill says. "Each vineyard is different," he says.

He doesn't think that Overbluff Cellars will sell its wines in grocery stores because he doubts that its production level would support that. He says the winery will sell its wines at its tasting room and through wine shops and restaurants.

The winery will obtain all of the grapes for its wines from the Walla Walla appellation, and with its red wines will seek to emulate the Napa Valley, California, style, which features immediate strong flavors that last for a long time on the palate, Caudill says.

"I think Walla Walla lends itself pretty closely to that," he says.

Caudill is a native of Lodi, Calif., which is near the famed Napa wine-producing region.

"I've always had a love of wine," Caudill says, and adds that his wife has been exposed to wines through her job at the Davenport. "I think we both have pretty good palates," Caudill says. His wife thought of the Overbluff Cellars name while the couple was on a trip to Napa, he says.

In addition to themselves, the Caudills will employ their son, Jordan, an Eastern Washington University student, in the winery. Their daughter, Hannah, will do some work there, too, John Caudill says.

Caudill says he grew up in the auto body trade, moved here in 1986, left for Seattle in 1989, and returned with his wife 10 years later.

He says his wife is a graduate of Washington State University's hospitality program.

He managed the auto body shop at Camp Chevrolet here until two years ago and is a self-taught winemaker who has taken noncredit courses in viticulture and enology from Washington State University and has read everything he can find on winemaking, Caudill says.

Next fall, Overbluff Cellars will release a 2008 Syrah and a 2009 semillon.