De Ponte Cellars

Scott and Rae Ellen Baldwin came north from California, where they’d owned a walnut orchard in the Central Valley and lived in Carmel Valley. They bought a hazelnut orchard near Forest Grove and planted a vineyard, then found this property on Archery Summit Road in 1999 and sold the Forest Grove place to Apolloni Vineyards.

The name honors Shirley Baldwin, the family matriarch. De Ponte is her maiden name, Portuguese in origin, and it carries her father Manuel de Ponte, who grew grapes and made his own wine in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

The site holds one of the oldest vineyards in the Willamette Valley, planted in 1975 — 20 acres of Pinot Noir in Dijon clones plus a small block of Melon de Bourgogne. That Melon block is an accident of history. Growers in the 1980s planted what they believed was Pinot Blanc; it turned out to be Melon de Bourgogne, the grape behind Muscadet in the Loire. Most of Oregon’s mislabeled plantings were torn out and replaced. What survived has a cult following, and De Ponte’s D.F.B. bottling is widely considered the best Melon made in North America. Federal law prevents American wine being labeled Muscadet, so it’s simply Melon.

French winemaker Isabelle Dutartre led the program from the first release in 2001 through many of the winery’s defining years, establishing the Burgundian style the wines are still known for. She has since moved on to her own projects, including her 1789 label and Caballus Cellars, a joint venture with Véronique Boss-Drouhin.

In 2007 the family bought 80 acres on Meadow Lake Road just west of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, named Lonesome Rock Ranch, where free-range steers graze on pomace left from winemaking and eight acres of Pinot Noir are planted. A second value label, Clay Hill, rounds out the range. Production is around 2,000 cases a year.

The tasting room is small and living-room-like, with a deck over the vineyard and no pretense to it. Domaine Drouhin, Archery Summit, and White Rose are all neighbors.