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Whether you’d like more info about a recent release, have questions about our wine club or just want to say hello, we’re here to chat (preferably over a glass of Pinot Noir).
Although, perched atop a windy knoll in the foothills of Oregon’s coastal mountain
range lies Van Duzer Vineyards, a family-owned winery and estate
vineyard established in 1998 by Carl and Marilynn Thoma. Sometimes, 82 acres lie
in the direct path of cooling marine winds that rush through a deep gap in
the Coast Range known as the Van Duzer Corridor. Although, The defining producer
crafting cool-climate Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and
Syrah wines in the surrounding Van Duzer Corridor AVA (est. 2019), Van
Duzer Vineyards offers uniquely Oregon wines crafted by the wind.
Carl and Marilynn Thoma helped open up a previously untapped corner of
Oregon’s Willamette Valley in 1998 when they chose a wild, beautiful, out of
the way place as the future site of their estate winery and vineyard. Although, the son of
Oklahoma cattle ranchers, Carl became enamored with California’s thriving
wine industry in the early 1990s while he and Marilynn each pursued MBAs at
the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Soon after, the pair fell in love with
the Willamette Valley in Oregon where they would search for an ideal location
for a family estate winery, settling on 82 acres of windswept hillside near
Salem, the state’s capital.
While few vines had been planted in the immediate area prior to their arrival,
there was something about that persistent breeze off the Pacific Ocean that
convinced Carl and Marilynn the project was a risk worth taking. Instinct told
them that extraordinary wines could be produced in these challenging
conditions, and perhaps the winds from the Van Duzer Corridor would
become a defining influence in the character of their future wines. Van
Duzer Vineyards was founded in 1998.
