Description
Producer
Rathjen Cellars is a farm-based winery established on the Saanich Peninsula in 2016. They are passionate about bringing under-utilized farmland back to health and into production. Drawing inspiration from Old World traditions, they use minimal intervention in the cellar to create wines that truly reflect Vancouver Island’s coastal climate and pair beautifully with local foods.
Mike Rathjen moved to Vancouver Island in 2011 with a passion for wine, farming, and food culture. Over the next five years he honed his winemaking skills in his basement (AKA the ‘Wine Bunker’) while building relationships in the local farming community. Together with his friend and business partner Colin Mann, Mike founded Rathjen Cellars in 2016 with a business model based off leased farmland and a focus on supporting the local food system. Mike prefers the title ‘winegrower’—dialing back the variable of winemaking to allow further exploration and expression of their vineyards in this emerging wine region.
{Rathjen Cellars sources all of its fruit from nine vineyards on the Saanich Peninsula and two vineyards in the Cowichan Valley.