Natty Chatties

Fiona Mak, Owner & Winemaker of SMAK Wines

About FIONA

Meet Fiona Mak. She's a certified sommelier, international woman of style and taste, homemade dumpling goddess, and the owner/winemaker of SMAK Wines in Walla Walla. She came to the US from Hong Kong to earn a degree in Hospitality Management from Syracuse University, and after kicking off her career working with multiple high-end restaurants in Philadelphia and Manhattan, her grape-based studies brought her to Eastern Washington. There, she continued her wine education and worked as a Laboratory and Quality Control Manager for a wine lab (those exist!). But something was missing - she couldn't stop thinking about rosé.

You've heard of "rosé all day" ad nauseam, but Fiona's philosophy is "rosé all year" - In 2018, she started her own winery, exclusively producing a different rosé for every season after frequently visiting the French Riviera and realizing that their pink-wine-on-loop lifestyle should be everyone's lifestyle (smart). When Fiona's not hustling to get SMAK to the masses, you can find her studying for the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wine, cooking in the kitchen, and cranking out dumplings with homemade chili oil to provide that extra spice in life.

 The CHat

I know it's painful to think about, but imagine that the production of rosé was forever banned on Planet Earth. After an appropriate length of time spent mourning the loss of pink wine, what type would you produce if you could only choose one all over again?

Fiona: If I can’t make Rosé I would be making white wines. Rosé is actually made in a white wine method but using red (it’s really red, purple, blue or black) skinned grapes. There are a lot of interesting varietals growing here in Washington. I like sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, picpoul and grenache blanc. I’m more drawn to wines that can be made in a crisp, fruity, floral and low alcohol style.

I'm sure you are a fan of the iconic phrase, "Rosé All Day." I mean, your job literally IS "Rosé All Day." But if rosé truly was a way of life, meant to replace water with every single meal, what would be your ideal breakfast, lunch, and dinner to pair perfectly with a day's supply?

Fiona: We absolutely support the rosé all day, rosé all year concept and treat rosé as a lifestyle. I was heavily influenced on the rosé mentality from travelling to France to see my family. Once you’re there when you see sun, you’d sit outside, you’d drink rosé. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a beach in the Summer or a ski chalet in the Winter. Truthfully I normally skip breakfast but if I were to have rosé all day with food here’s what I would do -

BREAKFAST: Smoked salmon scramble with Lucien Albrecht Cremant d’Alsace Brut Rosé

LUNCH: Dim sum with Domaine de Terrebrune Rosé

DINNER: Bucatini all’amatriciana with Dominio del Águila Picaro Clarete

*Side note: sushi and rosé are always a good pairing.

I've been meaning to ask you this for a long time. We need to know if there are bubbly plans - would you ever consider adding a rosé pét-nat to your lineup at SMAK?

Fiona: Yes! We will be separating Fall/ Winter. The Winter label will be a sparkling rosé done in the traditional Champagne method (although we can’t label as that).

When you're not making wine, you're mastering kickass homemade dumplings - what is your #1 all-time favorite dumpling to make, and which bottle (other than your own) would you uncork with it? Bonus points if that's a natural wine.

Fiona: My favourite dumplings to make are chicken gyoza (with the pleats). Usually we have the SMAK summer Rosé with that. If I can’t drink my wine I would love a growers champagne or anything bubbly. I recently had a Christina Grüner Vetliner, made by Christina Netzl in Austria and she’s been making natural wines with her family for generations. It is incredibly delicious.

Your boyfriend and my friend, Peter Urian (of Devona Winery) is also a winemaker, and my curiosity surrounding what it's like being a wine power couple knows no bounds. But what I really want to know is, have you two ever had a stupid fight ABOUT wine?

Fiona: There are no stupid fights! And certainly not about wine. We both agree that wine is so subjective to personal opinions. I think we respect each others’ palate enough to know that we each have our strengths in identifying certain aspects of wine and together we can analyse them and get a bigger picture. For example, I am better at identifying and nailing down fruit and herb notes while he’s better at identifying oak notes (French oak, American oak, length of oak exposure, etc). I think most of our conversations about wine are about the wine we are drinking, and the fundamental question we would ask each other is whether we like it or not. If we don’t like the wine in the glass we may debate about why we don’t like it and then would turn around and open another one to see if we would like that one better. We would continue to open wines until we land on one we’d like to drink.

If rosé had a three-track hype-up playlist, what would those three songs be?

Fiona: Non, Je ne regrette rien - Edith Piaf, Sympathique - Pink Martini, The Girl from Ipanema (feat. Astrud Gilberto & Antôntio Carlos Jobim) - Stan Getz & Jõao Gilberto

You grew up in Hong Kong - I feel like, at least on the surface, Asia is often overlooked as a grape-growing continent, but it seems like there are a lot of fantastic varietals coming from there. Have you had many Asian grape-based wines, and what are your favorites from the region?

Fiona: I had some but I wanted to have more when I had the opportunity. I would say there are a lot of standard vitis vinifera out of China - Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. but I am also very excited about the possibility of China being about to produce sparkling wines in the foothills of the Himalayas. My favourite right now is the Cabernet Sauvignon from Ao Yun.

If someone took your wine and made a huge batch of frosé with it, would you be disappointed?

Fiona: Absolutely not! We are making a huge batch of frosé ourselves this year for the tasting room. I think it’s fun to find new ways to enjoy our wines, whether it’s drinking straight out of the bottle, cooking with it or making them into cocktails. We have a lot of recipes to either make cocktails or cook with our wines on our website. The most important thing is to have fun, and have fun the way you want to have it.