Granville Wines

In 1978, Jackson Holstein’s parents drove from Kentucky to Oregon in a Chevy pickup. A few years later they bought ten acres in the Dundee Hills and built a modest house to raise a family in. His father Allen went on to manage vineyards for Domaine Drouhin, Stoller, Knudsen, and Argyle — one of the people who quite literally planted this region. Jackson’s earliest memories are of riding in the back of that truck from vineyard to vineyard, day after day. Tractors and barrels were the playground.

Ayla grew up just over the hill. When Allen retired after more than 35 years of growing Oregon wine, the two leased the family vineyard and founded Granville in 2014, named for a paternal family legacy.

The Holstein Estate Vineyard was planted in 1972, among the earliest in the Willamette Valley. Ten and a half acres on the farthest eastern ridge of the Dundee Hills, from 615 to 740 feet, with slopes facing all four cardinal directions and fractured basalt varying block to block. Incremental replanting began in the 1990s, so the vines now run 17 to 32 years old, planted to old-world Pinot Noir clones. It’s dry-farmed and organically grown, which forces the roots deep into the Jory clay.

Beyond the estate, they work only with organic or biodynamic vineyards on basalt soils across the Dundee Hills and Eola-Amity Hills, including Koosah, a steep permaculture site planted among hundreds of species of flowering and fruiting trees. Production is roughly 4,000 cases: native yeast ferments, around 25% whole cluster, unfined and unfiltered.

Tastings are by appointment in a remodeled house at the top of Jory Lane, with a fireplace inside and Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson on the horizon. Wine dinners appear on the calendar. Jackson runs the vineyard and the cellar, usually with two toddlers somewhere in the rows; Ayla runs the business and hospitality, having worked harvests in Oregon, New Zealand, and Australia before becoming a wine buyer for a local restaurant.