Coeur de Terre Vineyard

Scott and Lisa Neal got lost over Memorial Day weekend in 1998, scouting vineyard sites in the Willamette Valley. They ran into a For Sale sign on an out-of-the-way property in the McMinnville foothills, spent weeks walking the land and analyzing soils, and moved in on Labor Day. Scott is from Minnesota, Lisa from Colorado. While excavating for the vineyard they turned up a large heart-shaped rock, which gave the place its name — Coeur de Terre, heart of the earth.

Renelle’s Block went in that first spring with help from friends, planted to nine Pinot Noir clones as an evaluation. A friend named Suzie Gagne taught Scott to graft, and the family hand-grafted over 80,000 vines in their own greenhouse from those original plants — every subsequent block sourced from that mother block. They planted from 1999 to 2007.

The blocks carry family names. Renelle’s is Scott’s mother. Sarah Jane’s is Lisa’s great-grandmother. Abby’s and Tallulah’s Run are their daughters, the block planted the year each was born. The Syrah sits in the warmest, rockiest corner and belongs to Lisa’s Grandma Nita. Each block has different soil, exposure, and elevation, and the block-designate wines taste distinctly different from one another.

The property runs 92 to 100 acres with roughly 38 planted, tucked into a protective valley in the Coast Range foothills. Proximity to the Van Duzer Corridor gives warm days and cool nights; the valley shape shelters the vines from harsh coastal wind. Soils mix sedimentary and volcanic origin, which is unusual within a single site. Farming has been organic since day one — no-till, glyphosate-free, regenerative, with half the land deliberately kept wild.

Scott makes the wine and manages the vineyard, and is often in the tasting room himself explaining what makes McMinnville AVA fruit different. Beyond Pinot Noir there’s Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, dry Riesling, Grüner Veltliner, Rosé Rustique, and a cool-climate Syrah — a genuine rarity here. Reviews from Wine Enthusiast, Vinous, and Prince of Pinot run consistently above 90, with Best Value nods from Wine & Spirits and Food & Wine.

The tasting room is carved into a wooded hillside with a wraparound deck over the vineyard. If you’ve got time, ask about the soil cores — they’ll pull out tubes showing how radically the ground changes across the property.