Lost Mountain Winery has its roots in an old family winemaking tradition that began in the Conca family’s native Italy.

Matteo Conca
Like many immigrants seeking a new life, Matteo Conca came to the United States from the Lake Como area of northern Italy just after the turn of the century. He became a renowned chef on the east coast and made wine at home for family and friends. Both of Matteo’s sons, Romeo and Edward, learned to make the wines from their father and were avid home winemakers. Edward continued to live on the east coast and was still making wine well into his 80’s.

Romeo Conca
Matteo’s other son, Romeo, also carried on the family’s home winemaking tradition while pursuing a career in organic chemistry that eventually took him to Washington’s Olympic Peninsula where he was a research chemist. When he retired he moved to Sequim and the mountain foothills near where his wife’s family had originally homesteaded and realized his longtime dream of turning his home winemaking skills into a commercial winery.

Steve Conca
Romeo’s son, Steve, built the combination home and basement production facilities for his fathers’ boutique winery on 47 acres in the foothills above Sequim and joined him in wine making. The Washington wine industry was just in it’s infancy with Lost Mountain Winery being just the 18th licensed winery in the state. The first 400 gallon crush took place in 1981, and the first wines were sold directly from the winery cellar. The production in the small cellar grew to about 600 cases and were sold mostly by word of mouth. With Romeos passing in 1997 Steve and his wife, Sue, took over the winery full time. Over the next several years they expanded the production to 1500 cases by replacing much of the older equipment with slightly larger versions, moving the crush and fermentation into an adjacent building, and moving the bottling, labeling, case storage and tasting room upstairs into the former living quarters, while contining  to make the wines in the original style and with the old techniques.

Steve & Sue Conca
The Conca’s have both attended winemaking seminars at UC Davis, and continuing education classes in Washington. They work as a team and share both the duties of winemaking and business management. They continue to do all the winemaking including bottling and labeling by hand and can usually be found pouring wines in the tasting room. The 1500 case production is a comfortable level for the two of them to maintain and they do not intend to increase production beyond their current capacity. The wines are sold directly from the winery in person, by phone or order, and to their mailing list. With their limited production many vintages can sell out within a few months of their release.