Lingua Franca

Larry Stone became the ninth Master Sommelier in the United States in 1988, then the first American to win Best International Sommelier in French Wines in Paris. Thirty years followed at the Four Seasons, Charlie Trotter’s, and Rubicon in San Francisco, where his partners included Francis Ford Coppola and Robert De Niro. He mentored a generation of sommeliers, Rajat Parr among them.

One of his regulars at Rubicon was Mark Tarlov, who would only drink Burgundy. Stone eventually refused to pour him any more of it and told him the best place outside Burgundy was the Eola-Amity Hills, near Seven Springs. That conversation led to Evening Land in 1996, which Stone helped create and later managed.

Working there, he watched the neighboring Janzen Farm — a 150-acre property adjacent to Seven Springs that Oregon’s best names had chased for forty years. It belonged to relatives of one of the area’s original religious leaders, who considered wine sinful and weren’t keen on seeing the land planted. It took years of persuasion. At 4pm on December 31, 2012, Stone closed. He’d auctioned his personal wine collection to help fund it.

The plan was to sell fruit. Dominique Lafon of Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Meursault saw the site and insisted Stone make wine from it, offering to consult and find a winemaker. He brought in his protégé Thomas Savre, who holds a bachelor’s and dual master’s in enology from the University of Burgundy. Lingua Franca was co-founded in 2015 with David Honig; the first harvest came that August.

The estate runs 66 acres under vine on east-facing slopes with a 300-foot elevation gain, on Nekia, Gelderman, and Jory volcanic soils. Twenty-three blocks were planned with different rootstock and budwood combinations matched to soil variation, farmed organically and biodynamically under the guidance of regenerative viticulturist Mimi Casteel. Neighbors are Seven Springs, Argyle’s Lone Star, and Domaine Serene’s Jerusalem Hill — Oregon’s short list of grand cru sites.

The name refers to a bridge language, the common tongue between speakers of different backgrounds. Production runs roughly 4,000 to 6,000 cases of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Constellation Brands acquired the winery in 2022 after Covid and the 2020 fires; Stone remains as ambassador and adviser, with Savre and Lafon still in place.