Richard Middleton Jr.
Rick Middleton and his family have always grown things. They started with timber in the late 1800s, and diversified into table and wine grapes in California in the early 1990s.
The Anderson & Middleton Company (A&M) is privately held and based in Hoquiam, Washington state. Throughout the early 1900s, A&M harvested and shipped timber from the Northwest down the west coast as far as San Francisco. Some of their timber helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.
In the 1990s the company started subsidiaries to grow table grapes in Delano, and wine grapes in Paso Robles, California. A&M is now one of the leading suppliers of table grapes in the United States. Naturally, the next step was to establish a wine brand, and the Middleton family founded Clayhouse Wines to make wine from the family’s Red Cedar Vineyard in Paso Robles in 2001.
Not content to be away from his Washington home all of the time, Rick and the Middleton family are now developing a vineyard and winery project in eastern Washington. Cadaretta Wines released its first wines, a 2007 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon (SBS) and a 2006 Syrah, in early 2008. An estate vineyard (named Southwind after an A&M lumber schooner) was planted in 2008.
Rick has a double major in International Studies and History from the University of Washington. He holds a Masters of International Management from Thunderbird in Arizona. He spent time working for the U.S. State Department after graduation, but returned to the family business for good in 1995
