Maysara Winery

Moe Momtazi came to the United States in 1971 to study civil engineering in Texas, then returned to Iran with Flora in 1978. The revolution came next. In 1982 they escaped, Flora eight months pregnant, traveling by way of Pakistan, Spain, Italy, and Mexico. Their eldest daughter Tahmiene was born in Spain along the route.

They settled in the Willamette Valley in 1990, where Moe built a career as a civil engineer and construction company owner. On April 1, 1997, he and Flora bought 496 acres of abandoned wheat farm south of McMinnville that had been free of chemical input for seven years. They turned the soil over repeatedly through that summer to clear it naturally, and planted 13 acres of own-rooted Pommard Pinot Noir in March 1998. The first vintage came in 2001.

The farming philosophy came from Moe’s grandfather in Iran, who practiced what the family simply called natural farming. When Moe began studying Rudolf Steiner in 2001, he found Steiner had drawn heavily on Zoroastrian principles that Persian agriculture had used for thousands of years. Demeter certification followed for the vineyard in 2004 or 2005, and for the winery in 2007. Not a single drop of chemical input has been used on the estate.

The property now covers 532 acres with over 200 planted, the largest Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyard in Oregon. Roughly half remains uncultivated: 95 acres of oak woodland, pasture, meadow, and two reservoirs stocked with rainbow trout and bass. Forty cows supply manure for estate-made compost. Medicinal herbs are grown and turned into sprayable teas. Wild turkeys roam. Soils are Nekia and Yamhill series with veins of Peavine and Jory, and the site’s position in the Coast Range foothills gives warmer days, cooler nights, and less harvest rain than the valley floor.

Tahmiene became head winemaker in 2007 and landed on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 in her second year. Naseem runs sales, Hanna runs events and hospitality. The wines carry Persian names — Cyrus, Delara, Jamsheed, Asha — and the estate sells fruit to more than twenty other producers including St. Innocent, Nicolas-Jay, Kelley Fox, Fullerton, and Brianne Day. Momtazi fruit is among the most sought-after in the valley.

The tasting room bar came from a single oak felled on the property, and the ten-foot walls are field stone gathered on site. Persian tapestries and artifacts fill the room. Maysara was named the 23rd best vineyard in the world in 2025.