We believe that to make good wine you must first start with great fruit. We want to put only the best possible fruit in our wine. In order to achieve that goal, we started with a prime vineyard site in the northern end of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, northwest of Forest Grove. The site is comprised with very deep weathered, uniform Kilton soil, at an ideal elevation (above the frost and fog) and exposure (south facing). Another plus is the close proximity to our house (it’s right next door). Our Second site is located north of Gaston on Old highway 47. The soils at this site are from the Melbourne Association. Melbourne soils are well drained and they have a surface layer of dark-brown silty clay loam. The upper part of the subsoil is dark yellowish-brown silty clay loam, and the lower part is brown silty clay. Effective rooting depth is more than 60 inches.  However, we have dug to a debt of 7 feet and found no change in soil texture

However site selection is only part of a larger picture of making a great wine. You need a lot of friends (Scott, Al, Bob, Henry, Joyce, Tom, Kathy, Joyce (Demo Diva), Jerry, Larry, Judy, Toby, Chuck, Kelly, Allison, Randy, Henry, Joyce, Mike, Russell, and Keith) to help you plant and you also need great wine makers and mentors, enter Keith, Trudy, and Kim Kramer, to turn the fruit into wine. To bring premier Pinot Noir grapes to their full potential, we are adopting sustainable vineyard practices that emphasize flavor over production volume. These practices — such as high density planting, shoot thinning, cluster removal, avoidance of the use of harsh pesticides and herbicides, — increase cultivation costs and reduce the amount of fruit that can be harvested. For sophisticated wine lovers, however, such a tradeoff will be well worth the effort.

Our goal is to grow the best fruit possible and be personally involved with each plant. The small size of the plot allows this goal to be met and the site to be maintained by one person, if needed.  It is so personal that the early growing vines were given them all names.