Beckham Estate Vineyard

Andrew and Annedria Beckham bought land on Parrett Mountain in 2004 to build a pottery studio. He’d been a ceramics artist for 25 years and a high school teacher for fifteen; she was heading toward a career in physical therapy. Then they noticed the vineyards on the surrounding slopes. Andrew talked her into a few rows of grapes. By 2005 he was volunteering in local vineyards and wineries, and Annedria was propagating their first vines on the living room table.

He apprenticed under regional winemakers for several years and made his first wine in 2009. Then Annedria showed him a magazine article about Italian winemaker Elisabetta Foradori doing punch-downs in clay vessels the way ancient winemakers had. He skimmed it, looked at the photographs, and said he could make those.

He could. But it took work — consulting a chemist to develop a food-safe clay body, then firing thirty one-liter test vessels at different temperatures, filling them with finished Riesling, and weighing each one weekly to measure volume loss. That’s how he found the right firing temperature for unlined amphorae. He now hand-builds vessels from 100 to 220 gallons using a seamless forming process, and his company Novum Ceramics is the first commercial producer of terracotta amphorae for winemaking and brewing in North America. There’s a waiting list.

Clay does different things than oak. Andrew describes the extraction at the end of primary fermentation as brighter and higher-toned, with more energy and tension. The wine runs cooler and ferments slower. During aging it gets roughly twice the oxygen exposure of oak, so it matures faster and can be bottled at nine or ten months rather than eighteen.

The estate covers 34 acres with nearly half planted to six varieties: Pinot Noir, Trousseau Noir, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Aligoté, and Gamay Noir. Riparian zones were deliberately left as habitat. Farming follows biodynamic and regenerative principles with grazing animals and plant diversity.

Two labels run in parallel. A.D. Beckham ferments and ages primarily in the amphorae, with native yeasts, no fining, and minimal sulfites. Beckham Estate Vineyard is estate-only, aged in neutral French oak, aiming for transparent elegance, often designated by parcel.

Beckham Estate is likely the only winery in the world where the vessels are made on site, integrated with the farming and the winemaking.