The former Pro Bowler discusses his new profession — winemaking.

Interviewed by Tyghe Trimble

In 2007, the year Drew Bledsoe retired from professional football, Washington’s Doubleback Wineries produced their first yield of bottle-ready grapes. Five years later, Bledsoe — Doubleback’s owner and general manager — is still at it, putting out big Washington cabernets with head winemaker Chris Figgins. We talked to Bledsoe, who just turned 40, about how he got into wine and why he never considered a comeback.

You planted your first vines in 2004, when you were still with the Buffalo Bills. Were you always planning this transition?
We started in 2003, planted in 2004, but didn’t bring fruit in until 2007. It takes five to seven years before the vineyard is mature.

So winemaking was the reason you retired?
I knew there was going to be a transition at some point, and I was planning for that. When it was time to make the transition, I was able to do it and not look back. I read Randy Moss is coming back, and I’m sure part of that is because he thought it was time to retire, but found a big, gaping hole he had to fill. If you don’t have something to fill that, you go reaching back for more. For me, I planned for it: We started our wine business and a small private equity group, which has been a lot of fun.

You grew up in what’s become a big wine region. Did you come from a wine-loving family?
My folks didn’t really drink wine. If anything, they were beer drinkers. I didn’t discover wine until a couple years into my NFL career. I started learning more and more about the process, and with every layer I uncovered, the more intriguing it became. Then, as luck would have it, my little hometown of Walla Walla became one of the premier wine regions in the world.

Did your long-time friend (Doubleback’s consulting winemaker) Chris Figgins have anything to do with it?
Yes, indirectly. I was collecting and consuming a lot of what Chris was making, and it made me really proud he was making world-class wine right next door to the house where I grew up. We didn’t have much of a relationship after high school, because I was gone and he was a couple of years younger than I was. But when I started getting into the business, being able to come back and hire Chris, I equate that to starting an NFL franchise and being able to start out with Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady or Drew Brees as your quarterback — he’s at that level.

What is your working relationship like?
Chris makes thousands of little decisions on a day-to-day basis. I trust him implicitly and rely heavily on his input. He offers the pros and cons of a couple of different directions, but ultimately the decision falls with me. If he’s the head coach and quarterback, I’m the owner and general manager. I sign all the checks and decide what kind of wine we’re making, what profile we’re looking for, what our production is going to be, our varietal selection, our barrel program, and our bottle age.

So many celebrity winemakers that get a bad rap. What do you say to that?
One of the things we’ve tried to avoid is that stigma. As a collector, I always discounted those, because wine is not a candy bar. It’s a luxury product, and what’s in the bottle should drive the value, not what’s on it. The name we put on the bottle, it’s not Bledsoe Cabernet, it’s Doubleback.

That sounds better.
The best compliments I’ve received have been, “oh, you make Doubleback? Wow, I love that wine, I didn’t know that was you.” Those are the best we’ve received, the ones where people discover the wine, and then figure out this old dumb jock is making it.

You’ve had two very different careers:  Fast-paced quarterback and patient winemaker. Do you ever find yourself getting antsy?
Playing quarterback, I’d make a decision and know instantly whether it was a good or bad choice based on who caught the ball. With wine, it can be seven to ten years before you know if you made the right decision. It requires patience that’s far different from my previous profession. But there are great similarities too: You’ve got to plan correctly, spend a lot of time with your plan before making a move, and have the courage and willingness to adapt when things change. After all, mother nature’s continuously throwing footballs at us.