Fifty years ago we were looking for a place just big enough to support two families, and small enough to let us do all the work ourselves. We found it in 1977 – the old abandoned Bethel Heights Walnut Groves in the Eola Hills with fifty acres “suitable for vineyard” according to the classified ad.
What we found here was a living landscape – a geological mosaic of benches and slopes covered with healthy living soils, a crystal clear perennial stream running down the middle through a deep, wooded ravine, and a rich diversity of wildlife to share it all.
As stewards of this place, we have always sought to respect and protect the life we found here, and to share it with others through the wines it brings forth.
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Our Estate Vineyards
Since its establishment in 1977, Bethel Heights Estate Vineyard has grown from the original fifty acres to eighty acres, now including the adjacent Justice Vineyard and Lewman Vineyard. Taken together the three vineyards constitute a geological/topographical mosaic of rocky south-facing benches and slopes, formed over many millennia of volcanic activity pouring lava onto the underlying sea floor, all directly in the path of the powerful maritime winds that define the Eola-Amity Hills.
The first vines were planted at Bethel Heights between 1977 and 1979. That was before the discovery of phylloxera in Oregon, so we were free to just stick un-rooted cuttings into the ground and let them
make their own roots in place. For more than thirty years these Legacy Blocks of own-rooted vines have produced wines of great character and distinction, notably the Flat Block, the Southeast Block, and the West Block Pinots and the High Wire Chardonnay. But phylloxera has finally taken its toll. Incremental replanting of the Legacy Blocks began in 2019.
Meanwhile our second-generation vines planted between 1999 and 2002 have grown to full maturity
and are now taking the lead in our most elevated bottlings. These include sections of the original Bethel Heights Vineyard replanted in 2000-2002, the adjacent Justice Vineyard established in 1999, and the adjacent Lewman Vineyard established in 1992 and added to our estate in 2020. All are all planted on phylloxera-resistant rootstock and include many new clones and vine spacing variations that were not available in the early days, bringing interesting new voices to the table.
BETHEL HEIGHTS ESTATE VINEYARD
Established 1977
Elevation: 480’ to 620’
Soil: Volcanic (Nekia series)
49.6 acres planted
24.3 acres own-rooted vines
44.5 acres Pinot noir
5.3 acres Chardonnay
2.0 acres Pinot blanc
One of the oldest vineyards in the Eola-Amity Hills, an independent hill chain in the center of the Willamette Valley. It is a geological/topographical mosaic of rocky south-facing benches and slopes. Its volcanic soils were formed over many millennia from innumerable distinct lava flows. We did not fully appreciate the true geological complexity of these soils until we started making wine here, and discovered surprising differences between wines made from blocks just a few feet apart.
Justice Vineyard
Established 1999
Elevation: 400’ to 480’
Soil: Marine sediment
24.4 acres planted
19.1 acres Pinot noir
5.3 acres Chardonnay
Adjacent to Bethel Heights on the south, at a slightly lower elevation, where the underlying primeval sea-floor is tilted up and exposed to the surface below a very thin layer of volcanic topsoil. Grapes grown on these ancient marine sediments have a very different life experience from those grown in the volcanic soils at Bethel Heights, and the wines from Justice tell that tale quite dramatically.
LEWMAN VINEYARD
Established 1992
Elevation: 460’ to 525’
Soil: Volcanic
6.4 acres planted, all Pinot noir
Adjacent to both Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard. It shares the volcanic basalt soil typical of Bethel Heights Vineyard, with intriguing variations that we are just beginning to explore.
We recognize that we owe our success in all our endeavors to the people who work here, in the vineyard and in the winery,
and we strive to share our success in a just distribution of benefits.
Certified Organic
Bethel Heights Vineyard, Justice Vineyard and Lewman Vineyard are certified organic, sealing our commitment to farming our crop without any use of synthetic chemicals.
LIVE CERTIFIED
Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard have been LIVE Certified since 1997. Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights was one of the founders of LIVE, which requires a comprehensive certification of the whole farm, not just the crop, based on continual reduction of off-farm inputs by reliance on natural processes. LIVE winery certification requires reduction of energy and water consumption in the winery.
SALMON SAFE
Bethel Heights was one of the first vineyards to be certified Salmon Safe in 1997, representing our commitment to protect clean water and maintain riparian buffer zones in our agricultural landscape.
The Aeolian Wind
Early pioneers who settled in this neighborhood in the 1840’s were struck by the powerful, predictable marine winds that blow straight at us from the sea – funneled in through the Van Duzer Corridor, the lowest point in Oregon’s Coast Range, due west of Bethel Heights. Harking back to their classical education, those windswept pioneers named the hills for Aeolus, god of the winds in Greek mythology; hence the name Eola Hills.
“On most warm summer afternoons, the winds rise as the sun starts its descent. Cool ocean air pours into the valley. The mercury plummets 35 degrees. Wine grapes grown in the path of these winds are cooled quickly from the day’s heat, amplifying their aromatic qualities, and preserving their bright, fresh fruit flavors.”
Because of the dominating effect of these marine winds on our climate, the Eola-Amity Hills generally experience cooler average temperatures during the growing season than other parts of the Willamette Valley, allowing our grapes to ripen on the vines long into the Fall, reaching full flavor potential without losing the bright acidity and fine-grain tannins that give great wine its structure and balance.
