Domaine Divio

Bruno Corneaux grew up just outside Beaune, in the heart of Burgundy, the fourth generation of a family of grape growers and winemakers. He earned a master’s in enology and viticulture at the Institut Jules Guyot in Dijon, then worked vineyards in South Africa, California, Washington, and Oregon. In 1999 he started an award-winning winery in Tahiti, developing techniques for growing vinifera on a tropical coral atoll — which is about as far from Burgundy as viticulture gets.

He first came to Oregon in 1996, working for Domaine Drouhin at the family’s invitation, and immediately recognized how much this place resembled home.

In 2012 he and financial partner André Weil founded Domaine Divio. The name is the Gallic name for Dijon, capital of Burgundy and the town of Bruno’s youth. They spent two years looking for the right land and found it in Ribbon Ridge, planting in 2014 and calling the estate Clos Gallia — an estate owned by Gauls.

The farming is dry, organic, and biodynamic, with no artificial chemicals. The winemaking is minimal intervention, no fining, no filtration. Total production tops out around 6,000 cases, most bottlings very small.

The range goes well beyond Pinot and Chardonnay: sparkling crémant, rosé, Pinot Beurot (the Burgundian name for Pinot Gris), and Passetoutgrain — a traditional Burgundian co-ferment of Pinot Noir and Gamay, harvested and crushed together, then five months in neutral French oak. Almost nobody in Oregon makes it. Their sales coordinator put it plainly: they’d make it every year even if nobody ordered any, because it’s an expression of who they are.

Corneaux is also Director of Viticulture and Winemaking at NW Wine Company, overseeing more than 950 acres, including Hyland Vineyard. That gives him an unusually wide read on how sites across the valley differ.