Bainbridge Island Winery

The Day Road acreage where the winery currently sits was purchased by the Bentryns from Japanese-American farmer Akio Suyematsu, and represented only a part of the original Suyematsu family farm, founded in 1928. Except during the period of Japanese-American exclusion during World War II, the Day Road farm is the oldest, continuously farmed property in Kitsap County. Akio himself worked the land until his passing in 2012, and was an honored mentor to an emerging generation of Island farmers. Once part of the agricultural tradition that made Bainbridge Island the strawberry capital of the Northwest, the land is still tended by several working farms. Gerard and Jo Ann Bentryn founded Bainbridge Island Vineyards and Winery in 1977, after being inspired by their study of viticulture and enology in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. Having cultivated a particular affinity for the elegant, aromatic wines of the Loire in France and the Mosel in Germany, the Bentryns sought out a bioregion with similar growing conditions, and were moved to create an experience of food and wine deeply rooted in place here in the Pacific Northwest. The Bentryns chose to settle in the Puget Sound, where the long, dry summer days are even more ideal for vinifera than some European wine regions.