“I was born and raised in Washington; my dad grew up in Prosser,” Damon explains. 

Prosser is a town situated on the Yakima River, in the heart Washington’s Yakima Valley AVA, near the AVAs of Horse Heaven Hills and the greater Columbia Valley. Damon’s father grew up in Washington’s burgeoning wine country and went to school with the likes of Paul Champoux, founder of one of Washington’s most iconic vineyards.

“2012 was our first vintage of the Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet,” says Damon. “It was less than 500 cases. I played for twelve years in the NFL, but this project has always been about my family and the fruit. My family are here.”

Damon was introduced to wine by his teammate Dan Marino when they both played with the Miami Dolphins in the late 1990s.

“I couldn’t afford to buy the good wines when I was in college,” Damon tells me. “It was Dan that got me into wines. He had an amazing cellar and gave me a taste for fine wine. I didn’t know Washington made great Cabernets until he introduced me to them. He was the real inspiration for this.”

By the time Damon was ready to retire in 2009, the seed for his next move had already been planted. 

“This isn't about making a lot of ordinary wine,” he says. “This is about making the next great Washington Cab. I wanna be better than everyone else. This is the competitor in me coming out. When I started, I had already found some great fruit. My biggest challenge was finding the right winemaker. Then I found Chris.”

Chris Peterson had been working at DeLille Winery for eight years. He shares Damon’s vision for quality with an eye on expressing a sense of place while maintaining elegance.

“We now make a Cab from the three top areas of Washington—Walla Walla, Horse Heaven Hills, and Red Mountain, which makes the wines more and more about the differences in terroir,” Chris says. “We source from eleven different vineyards. 2021 was a lower-yielding vintage. We had a heat wave that shrunk the bunches. The 2021s are very concentrated, structured wines. In 2022, we had a late start and a hot summer. But come the beginning of October, we had nothing picked. Then we had a beautiful October—sunny and in the 80s every day. There is an elegance to all of our wines that I really appreciate.”

Passing Time now makes about 2500 cases per year. 80 to 85% of production is sold direct to consumer. "The rest, we distribute ourselves locally," smiles Damon. "We’re small, family-owned, and hands-on. Dan and I don’t even put our names on the label. Our goal is simply to make the best Washington Cabernet."

I’m usually suspicious of celebrities making wine, but the four 2022 Passing Time Cabernet Sauvignons I tasted are seriously good and worth checking out. The 2022 Block 1311 is phenomenal. “This comes from a single block from the Wallula Vineyard in Horse Heaven Hills,” says Damon. “It’s 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Dan Marino was number 13, and I was number 11 when we played with the Dolphins.” Only 125 cases were made.