Of all the white wines produced in Washington, only one earned a top score from the 2026 Decanter World Wine Awards, widely considered the Oscars of the wine world. The grapes that made it were planted by the man who inspired Nintendo’s most famous character.
Frenchman Hills Vineyard, a 468-acre estate on the Royal Slope in Grant County, is run by Mark Segale, whose late father Mario Segale became the unlikely namesake for Super Mario after renting a Tukwila warehouse to Nintendo in 1981.
“My dad had warehouses, built warehouses in Tukwila, and Nintendo was looking for space to start to assemble their games,” Mark Segale said. “There was a great story of a long negotiation for this warehouse space in our conference room, through a translator, and a deal was made.”
What followed became part of gaming lore. Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa had been negotiating in the Segale conference room for days entirely through a translator. After the deal was signed, both sides went to a local restaurant — the Italian tradition of breaking bread after business.
“Mr. Arakawa had been in the room for several days negotiating the lease, all through the translator,” Mark Segale told “Seattle’s Morning News.” “Well, he spoke perfectly good English in the restaurant after.”
The elder Segale, a real estate developer who died in 2018 at 84, never fully embraced his digital fame.
“He was Super Mario, but never knew,” Mark Segale said. “He did not really appreciate the whole Nintendo thing.”
The Nintendo connections don’t end there. The Segale family traces its roots to Italian immigrant farmers Louis and Rina Segale, who sold crops at Pike Place Market. Luigi, the beloved sidekick who has stood alongside Super Mario since the franchise’s early days, was named after Louis.
The family’s leap from warehouses to wine
In 2003, Mario and Mark visited the Grant County property, about three hours east of Seattle. They had no plans to become farmers.
“Then we broke the golden rule: never fall in love with a piece of real estate,” Mark Segale said. “But when we both saw it, we said, ‘This is amazing.’”
They bought 150 acres that year and expanded to the vineyard’s current footprint. It was the only vineyard Mario Segale ever planted or owned.
Winemaker Brian Rudin discovered the site in 2010 almost by accident. Working his first winemaking job in Walla Walla, he needed Sauvignon Blanc grapes and turned to Google Earth to find them.
“I was just flying around looking for any vineyard I could find,” Rudin said. “I spotted Frenchman Hills from the air, looked it up on the Grant County tax assessor’s office, found Mark’s number and called him up.”
What he found on the ground stunned him. Despite 2010 being one of Washington’s most difficult vintages in 30 years — cold, wet conditions that caused grapes to mold across the state — the Frenchman Hills crop remained in perfect condition.
“There was an epiphany moment where I was like, ‘My God, there’s something special about this site,’” Rudin said. “It has this perfect combination: perfect soil, full sun exposure, high elevation, good drainage, excellent airflow, top-tier management. This spot tucked away in eastern Washington is where you can grow some of the best wine on earth.”
Sixteen years later, that conviction was validated. Rudin’s Echolands Winery produced a Riesling from Frenchman Hills grapes that earned a 96-point score from the Decanter World Wine Awards — the only white wine from Washington state to achieve the distinction out of nearly 17,000 entries from 58 countries, judged by 245 international experts.
“We’re super thrilled,” Mark Segale said. “Because it’s an opportunity for us to really show the world what Frenchman Hills can do.”
This story was originally posted on MyNorthwest.com
Manda Factor is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. Follow Manda on X and email her here.
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