The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

On Saturday eve- ning, a group of ten people gathered for dinner around a large table at Mace Mead Works in downtown Dayton. A young caterer from Walla Walla named Sarah Roy served the group a traditional East Indian meal, consisting of Tandori flat bread, beef and lamb curry and a dessert called "paneer".

Reggie Mace, the es- tablishment's owner and the dinner's host, prepared a punch made with mead (honey wine), rose' wine and other flavors. He also prepared mead-based cocktails.

"These dinners are a way to explore pairing mead with interesting food from other cultures," Mace told me a few days later. He said he hosted a dinner a few weeks ago, featuring Spanish food accompanied by mead-based beverages. He plans to offer similar din- ners in coming weeks, with prices ranging from $50 to $80, all inclusive.

Mace is a Wenatchee native who received an art degree from Walla Walla University and set out to become a professional artist. But he soon learned that he wouldn't be able to make a living as an artist in Walla Walla. "To do it, I would have to move to San Francisco or New York," he said. "I like to visit those places, but I don't want to live there."

To help make ends meet, Mace got a job helping with production at Dunham Cellars in Walla Walla. He immediately fell in love with winemaking. "I knew this was something I could do for the rest of my life," he said.

The next fall, Mace crushed the first batch of grapes for his own wine. Using the name Mortal Vintners, he made about 100 cases, made up of three types of red wine.

In 2008, Mace and his wife bought a home in Dayton and a commercial building at 250 E. Main Street. "We decided we would choose a place we really wanted to live; then we would figure out what to do," he said. While he was in college, Mace had home-brewed beer and experimented with making mead. He decided to branch out as a mead maker, as well as a red wine maker.

While still making his wine at Dunham, Mace rebuilt the inside of his downtown Dayton building as a mead-making facility combined with a public tasting room. That tasting room has since evolved into a bar, lunch counter and coffee shop.

"This is a place where we can experiment," Mace said.

After opening the tasting room two summers ago, Mace has held a variety of private functions, often including live music. In Au- gust, he will introduce a new series of live Saturday night concerts.

In April, Mace Mead Works began serving sand- wiches and other food items for lunch and dinner. And they began serving espresso drinks shortly thereafter.

Earlier this month, Mace obtained a liquor license that allows him to sell beer and wine from other producers. "We want to expose people to a wide variety of products from around the world," he said. "Along with our own."

After three years of making wine in other people's facilities, Mace decided it was time to set up his own place. Last year, he agreed to lease a large space in the first building currently be- ing built at Blue Mountain Station, the Port of Colum- bia's new artisan food center west of Dayton. He hopes to create his first Mortal Cel- lars wine there this fall. He also plans to make his first- ever white wine - a Viognier. BMS will also be the pro- duction facility for Mace's mead, which is made on an ongoing basis and doesn't require aging.

Mace Mead Works and Mortal Vintners wines are currently sold through a distributor to outlets in Oregon and Washington. They will soon be available in Idaho and Montana as well.

Mace recently hired a sales representative who will seek to expand sales of Mortal Vintners wine and Mace Mead Works mead into the Midwest states.

In the meantime, Mace and his three other employ- ees, including bar/lunch counter/coffee shop man- ager Beth Rahn, will work to make their Main Street establishment a bigger draw for locals and tourists. Starting this week, new barista and returning Dayton native Josh Bye, will man the espresso machine beginning at 7 a.m. each morning.

I asked Mace what he thinks the prospects are for his business in a stodgy old farming community like Dayton. Will there be enough young people who will be attracted to his eclec- tic bar?

"We see our client base as people from their twenties all the way up to their sixties or more," he said. "We welcome people who are curious about food and drink from different cul- tures. It doesn't matter how old they are."

That said, Mace says he's excited about the many young people who haved moved to the area that he's become friends with. That includes Rahn and her husband, Chris, who are Dayton High graduates and returned to town a couple of years ago after spending several years in the San Francisco area.

"Whenever we learn about someone under 35 moving to Dayton, we say 'right on, let's have a bar- beque.'"