Tucked into the folds of Oregon’s fertile Willamette Valley, small vineyards flourish on land once thought unsuitable for anything but grasses or Christmas trees.  Each year, the struggling vines produce tight clusters of grapes that gradually ripen during the long, dry summer. The hazy, warm days and cool nights of autumn help the fruit develop intense, complex layers of flavor and aroma that produce wonderfully rich, elegant and forward wines.

Sass Winery is one such place, producing small amounts of handcrafted, high-quality pinot noir, pinot blanc, pinot gris, chardonnay, riesling, syrah, rose of syrah and gewurztraminer. We produced only a few hundred cases of wine our first few years and now make only 3,500 cases a year.

The vineyard, first planted in 1989, is in the hills of South Salem, facing east and south, at a gently rolling elevation of 450-530 feet. The soils are a well-drained silty red clay loam. The vines are vertically trellised and closely spaced at nearly 2,000 to the acre and are naturally farmed with no irrigation or invasive chemicals.

The winery was built in 1995, sunk partly into the hillside so that the crush pad is 5 feet above the winery floor, allowing gravity, not pumps, to power the harvest.  We will not expand production past 5,000 cases because we believe the finest wines are handmade, and we want our vineyards to fully express the complex elegance of their terroir.