Crowley Wines

A small Willamette Valley winery producing roughly 85 barrels a year of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, founded by Tyson Crowley. Raised in upstate New York, Crowley became interested in wine after an impromptu trip to the Finger Lakes, finished a degree at Syracuse, and moved west in 1995 to take a cellar hand position under Rob Stuart at Erath. He worked a Southern Hemisphere vintage at Framingham in New Zealand in 2002, then returned to work alongside Doug Tunnell at Brickhouse and Jim Prosser at J.K. Carriere, followed by Archery Summit and five years as assistant winemaker to John Paul at Cameron. He made his first four barrels of his own Pinot Noir at Cameron in 2005 and moved into the studio space at August Cellars in 2007, which remains the winery’s home. Evan Roberts joined as business partner in 2008.

Crowley works exclusively with sustainably and dry-farmed, family-owned vineyards, and is a member of the Deep Roots Coalition, which commits to producing wine without irrigation. He favors cool, high-elevation sites and older clones: Wente for Chardonnay, Wädenswil and Pommard for Pinot Noir. The team farms and manages Four Winds Vineyard, planted in 1993 at roughly 800 feet in the McMinnville Coast Range, own-rooted, dry-farmed, and south-facing. Additional fruit comes from La Colina in Ribbon Ridge, Tukwilla and Geary Claim in the Dundee Hills, and Sojeau in the Eola-Amity Hills.

Winemaking is deliberately gentle: whole-cluster pressing, native yeast fermentation, aging across stainless and oak with limited new wood, full malolactic fermentation, and extended lees aging.