Winderlea Vineyard & Winery

The vineyard was planted in 1974 by John and Sally Bauers, at Dick Erath’s encouragement, on a 20-acre parcel on Worden Hill Road. They called it Dundee Hills Vineyard and sold fruit for two decades to Elk Cove, Rex Hill, and Adelsheim. Former Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt bought it in 1998, pulled out the Cabernet, Merlot, and Gamay, and by 2004 had the whole 16.5 planted acres in Pinot Noir.

Bill Sweat and Donna Morris left careers in East Coast financial services, spent 2004 and 2005 searching the Willamette Valley for a site, and bought this one in 2006. They renamed it Winderlea — pronounced win-dur-lee — after a Vermont property they’d bought in 2001, named generations earlier by the Gerard family. It reads loosely as a valley protected from the wind, and they liked that it sounded elegant.

Robert Brittan, with thirty years in Napa behind him, guided the early vintages.

What they built the place around was stewardship. LIVE and Salmon Safe certification came in 2008, biodynamic practices in 2009, and in March 2015 Demeter Biodynamic certification for both grape growing and winemaking — a stricter combination than most certified producers hold. The following month they became a Certified B Corporation, the second winery in Oregon and the fourth in the world. They’re also among a small group of Oregon wineries meeting phase 2 of the state Environmental Council’s carbon reduction program.

Portland architect Ernest Munch designed the tasting room — metal and glass, positioned for panoramic views east across the Dundee Hills and the valley, with passive energy management, solar hot water, and solar panels. It was the first Oregon tasting room built to those standards.

Winderlea now farms 43 acres across two Dundee Hills vineyards, with long-term contracts at Maresh, Murto, and Juliard.

In early 2026, Sweat and Morris transitioned ownership to the Ricci family after twenty years of stewardship.