Beaux Frères

In 1986, Michael Etzel was a wine salesman in Colorado Springs who read a glowing review of an ’83 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and put his family in the car. Twenty minutes short of their destination they took a whimsical detour to look at a foreclosed 88-acre pig farm. At the top of the dirt road they found an idyllic hillside, a little bungalow, and lush pasture, and started wondering whether a quiet farm life growing grapes might be possible.

He had no experience growing grapes at all. But he’d worked dairy farms as a kid and figured he could learn.

They came up with half the down payment. His sister Pat convinced her husband, wine critic Robert Parker Jr., to match it. The name is the French idiom for brothers-in-law.

They moved the following summer with three small boys. Planting began in 1988 — five acres at roughly 2,200 vines per acre, unusually tight spacing for the time. While establishing the vineyard, Michael worked four harvests at Ponzi. The first crop came in 1990 and he sold nearly all of it to Ken Wright and Dick Ponzi, keeping just enough for a single barrel. In 1991, Quebec investor Robert Roy joined to fund the build-out, the main pig barn became a winery, and the first estate Pinot Noir followed. Parker recused himself from ever reviewing the wines.

Twenty-four acres are now farmed biodynamically on south-facing WillaKenzie soils, sheltered by Douglas fir and maple. Goats graze uphill from the cottage. Pet pigs still live in a sty beside the barn.

Parker and Roy sold their interests to the Henriot family of Champagne in 2017, and the estate is now part of Artémis Domaines alongside Château Latour, Clos de Tart, Bouchard Père et Fils, and Eisele Vineyard.

Mike D. Etzel — the middle son, known as Mikey — came back in 2015 after an enology degree from Oregon State and work at WillaKenzie, Brick House, Chapter 24, and 00 Wines, plus internships in Priorat and Rioja and a vintage in New Zealand. He became head winemaker in 2016 and took over as CEO in 2023 when his father retired, bringing in Damien Lapuyade, formerly of Evening Land, to make the wine. Three generations of Etzels now live on Ribbon Ridge.