Brick House Vineyards

Doug Tunnell grew up in West Linn, fishing and boating near Willamette Falls, studied Philosophy and International Affairs at Lewis & Clark, and spent 1975 to 1992 as a foreign correspondent for CBS News — Beirut on and off for six years, plus Iran, London, Bonn, Paris, and Miami. Postings in Germany and France turned him into a wine person. Then in 1988, living in France and deep in Burgundy’s vineyards, he learned that the Drouhin family had just bought 120 acres in the Dundee Hills. He was stunned that well-known French producers were buying land in his home state.

It took nearly two years of looking. In 1990 he bought a 40-acre parcel off Lewis Rogers Lane on Ribbon Ridge — a neglected hazelnut farm choked with chemicals, anchored by an antique brick farmhouse, which is rare in this region and gave the winery its name. Vineyardist Joel Meyers planted the first 12 acres that year.

Tunnell insisted on organic from the very first planting, certified through Oregon Tilth in 1990 when almost nobody here was doing it. He took up biodynamic principles in 2002 and earned Demeter certification in 2005. Biodynamic certification in the US governs cellar practice as well as farming, which rules out added acid, sugar, enzymes, commercial yeast, and most corrective additives entirely.

About 30 of the 40 acres are planted, on WillaKenzie marine sedimentary soil across a southeast-facing slope. Pommard clone Pinot Noir went in during 1990, Chardonnay the same year, Gamay Noir in 1992, and Dijon clones in 1995. That Gamay is unusual — few Oregon producers make it at a serious commercial level. Production runs around 4000 cases across the Select and Cuvée du Tonnelier Pinots, Les Dijonnais, Cascadia Chardonnay, and the Evelyn’s bottling, named for Tunnell’s mother and made only in exceptional years. Cuvée du Tonnelier means the barrel maker’s cuvée, honoring his father’s family, who were coopers in 17th-century France.

Every wine since the first in 1994 has been made with native yeast. They’ve never opened a can of commercial yeast. DNA fingerprinting of their ferments turned up a strain that doesn’t appear in a database of known commercial yeasts.

In 2025 Savannah Mills became head winemaker — the first significant change in 35 years. She left corporate work in 2013, worked a harvest in New Zealand, returned, and became assistant winemaker in 2018, running the rosé program. She’s also Tunnell’s niece. Doug and his wife Melissa Mills still live on the property.

The tasting room is a restored 1930s barn with a fireplace, long wooden table, and a deck over the vines. It feels like arriving at someone’s home, largely because you are.