Our Partnership with Winderlea Vineyard
“Adelsheim has been involved with what is now called Winderlea Vineyard since 1998, when we managed the entire vineyard for Neil and Diana Goldschmidt.
That vineyard is actually the south half of a property purchased in 1971 by John and Sally Bauers. They started planting grapes in 1972, finishing the southern half in 1974. John was an osteopathic physician and wine lover. He and Sally helped found the Oregon Wine Brotherhood. They planted Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Riesling (like all of us) but also Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sauvignon blanc. The vineyard was called Dundee Hills Vineyard. They sold grapes to Rex Hill, Elk Cove, and other wineries. A little wine was made for John and Sally to sell under the Dundee Hills Vineyard label.
When John became very ill in 1998, the Bauers sold the northern half of their vineyard to Bill Holloran (Holloran Vineyard) and the southern half to Neil and Diana Goldschmidt. Neil had been Mayor of Portland, U.S. Transportation Secretary under the Jimmy Carter, and then Governor of Oregon. I met him when he was Governor, 1987- 1991. After retiring as Governor, he first bought the property that is now Lachini Vineyard on Calkins Lane. But he sold that when the southern half of Dundee Hills Vineyard was put up for sale by the Bauers in 1998, buying that instead.
I was involved in several dinners with Neil while he was Governor. In 1988, I set up a tour of Burgundy for Neil, which included the first ever tasting of Oregon wines there. We had a lot of time together on that trip and became friends.
When Neil and Diana purchased the 17-acre Dundee Hills Vineyard, they asked us to manage it for them. One of the first jobs was to get rid of all the inappropriate varieties and the own-rooted, wide-spaced old clones. Not all the property had been originally cleared. There was a very steep, southwest-facing slope, which we suggested they clear. We planted the first clone 667 Pinot noir on that slope. They renamed the property Goldschmidt Vineyard, which eventually allowed the new AVA to use the name “Dundee Hills.” Originally, the plan was for us to use all the grapes, but we couldn’t really use all that fruit. So, the Goldschmidts sold some of the fruit to Patricia Green Cellars, Penner-Ash, and R. Stuart & Co. Management of the vineyard became the responsibility of Andy Humphreys. Adelsheim Vineyard made a single vineyard from that property from 1998 to 2006. When the new block of clone 667 came into bearing, that became the single source for our single vineyard Goldschmidt Vineyard Pinot noir.
The vineyard was sold to Bill and Donna in 2007. They agreed to continue to sell grapes to all the wineries that had purchased fruit from the Goldschmidts at first. But once they started making their own wine to sell under their new brand, Winderlea, all the wineries slowly lost their access the fruit that had once purchased. Except us. Bill and Donna have continued to sell us half of the 667 block. We have made a single vineyard Winderlea Vineyard Pinot noir every year since 2007 (except 2011.)