Would you take wine advice from a brewer? Three Oregon breweries began producing and releasing wine over the last few years. Their processes, and the wine as proof, offer a glimpse at the beauties and pitfalls of another ancient drink in our modern world. This is a masterclass in wine, brought to you by brewers.

There may be some cognitive dissonance associated with a brewery making wine. While brewer-vineyard relationships are not new, the trend for breweries is to start their own seltzer program. However, the three breweries profiled here are Alesong Brewing & Blending, Block 15 Brewing, and de Garde Brewing; the seltzer question slowly slips to the background when you consider the nature of their businesses.

Nick Arzner, founder of Block 15, spoke his truth. “It’s not a craft product. Our company does craft beer, cider, and wine. There is no such thing as craft seltzer.”

With that topic rightfully squashed, we can dig our roots deeper into the intention, improvisation, and wondrous playfulness behind these wines.

Three Years in Barrels at de Garde

Let it be known that Beerstone is not a “wine guy.” Trevor Rogers was the first person interviewed for this article, and had to look at my face as I puzzled over how to adjust my antenna to receive the proper signals from his Syrah.

Rogers is an academic type, inquisitive and sensitive, with a sense of humor as dry as his beer. de Garde turned the corner on its first decade in 2023 having ridden the wave of wild beer’s ascendance, and amassed a cult following that would turn Tillamook into Pacific City for its bottle release days. Yes, that is a very Oregon metaphor.

Though Rogers did not have wine-specific work on his resume, he and the team at de Garde have worked with wine grapes for the entirety of the brewery’s existence. “It was not a brutal transition,” he says.

He poured a bit of 2019 Syrah into two glasses on a barrel-cum-table in the brewery’s tasting room in downtown Tillamook. The wine had matured, and this will shock most winemakers, in large, neutral-oak barrels for three years without sulfites added. He had to explain why that is unusual; it has to do with differing standards of cleanliness and sanitation between breweries and wineries.

“Years ago I read a comment, ‘Brewers know more about sanitation, winemakers know more about yeast.’ I’m not sure about the yeast, but sanitation in the brewery is way more important. We’re trying to do no-sulfite for the bulk of our aging. Talking to winemakers, they think we’re insane.”

Partly due to the fact that brewing is an ongoing process, as opposed to one big push per year when the harvest comes in, cleanliness in a brewery ensures that yeast and/or bacteria don’t carry over from batch to batch unless the brewery wants them to. Many wineries kill the wild yeast that lives on the fruit by adding potassium metabisulfite to the grape must (freshly pressed grape juice, skins, stems, and seeds) prior to adding their own yeast for greater control over fermentation.

At de Garde, most fermentation and aging is done in barrels ranging in size from standard wine and whiskey barrels to ten-foot wide oak foudres. With wood, infection is a much bigger concern; although de Garde produces spontaneously fermented beer, it is important to maintain balance in that process. Barrels are meticulously cleaned and sterilized with steam before use.

Back to the wine, the no-sulfite comment is part of a larger ethos that encompasses a small but growing sector of the wine industry: natural wine. And Rogers wants nothing to do with it. “We separate ourselves from the natural wine category – we do not think of ourselves as that,” primarily because of its perception as funky, or downright flawed.

Natural wine breaks from the current industrial process by doing nothing to enhance or impede fermentation, or prevent oxidation afterwards. This may lead to the inclusion of the winemaker’s nemesis, Brettanomyces yeast, as a member of the fermenting ranks, and plenty of funky flavors can result. It is a divisive topic, and Rogers prefers the phrase low intervention to describe the process at de Garde.

“I would pitch it as good, natural, low intervention process legitimately, but we also run a clean and healthy winery and are getting great wine out of these grapes.” The minimal intervention in this case is the lowest possible dosing of sulfite before bottling, simply to prevent oxidation.

Here’s where the academic comes out. “Low intervention is understood, but it is a bullshit term. It’s a series of conscious decisions that lead to the outcome. I don’t have the verbiage to express what we do – we don’t add anything and we don’t take anything away. We try to minimize our thumbprint. Nature provides the canvas and pigment, we describe the colors across it.”

All of this art talk is thirst-making. The Syrah, having been swirled and sniffed, showed up with a ripe red fruit basket; jammy, as they say, and surprisingly so for a Syrah, so I’m told. The neutral oak aging left a balancing, grainy whiff of wood; some bread on the jam.

The grapes come from the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater, Oregon. That AVA (American Viticultural Area) has terroir that Rogers likes best, and so he has contracted with several growers to purchase grapes either from an entire vineyard or a section thereof.

“We chose our location making beer here because I think there’s a unique and special voice from this area,” he says, indicating the natural yeast and bacteria in the air that are allowed to land on and ferment de Garde’s beer. “Similarly, my favorite wines have always expressed a character ‘from a place.’ The Rocks District has the most unique sense of place that I’ve found. We want something that isn’t just capable of being made anywhere.”

Again, not a wine guy, but I was not prepared for the impact of the 2020 Mourvedre. I had mentioned to Rogers that I had expected more black pepper character from the Syrah, and he concurred that a level of savory spice is generally part of that grape’s expression. And then he opened this bottle.

There’s no English word for the experience of being so tickled by something that you’ll grab a stranger off the street and say, “check out this thing!” But there should be.

All I jotted down was “rich peppery” but what went through my head, and the sense of communal pleasure I got from Trevor, was blissfully nerdy. Like, I didn’t know wine could taste so purely of peppercorn, or smell so freshly of leather. He said he’d pair it with Texas barbecue. For me, a Jamaican goat stew.

“It’s anything but ‘yummy,'” Rogers commented about that wine. “Yum is easy and cheap. It should be good, it should excite.” And he’s right, and there is a time and place for think pieces and conversation pieces alike. The discussion meandered for a moment to pastry stouts.

de Garde never set out to be popular, and its entrée into wine is no different. “About 99% of people don’t know we make it,” says Rogers. “It’s not a profit making decision. We’re not hedging our bets. We finally had access to fruit that we were passionate about.”

de Garde’s wine is available by the bottle at its Tillamook tasting room and through Block 15 Distribution.

Block 15 and the Platonic Cluster

Corvallis, Oregon is Ag Central for the state, with OSU’s extensive farm and food production programs, research facilities, and acres of land growing test plots of crops for the future. The university’s Fermentation Sciences program produces many brewers, and Block 15 Brewing is a lucky local employer of these educated folks.

Garrison Schmidt, son of a winemaker and OSU grad, started his career in beer at Block 15 and is now the production manager; he is also responsible for the brewery’s well-regarded wild ales. He and founder Nick Arzner both seem to find catharsis in the wine program. I caught up with them at the brewery’s South Corvallis taproom and production facility.

“Beer has always been a fun career for me because it balances art and science,” says Schmidt. “I’ve always considered myself more on the art side, and [making wine] has complemented that; it’s about the touch and taste and feel, as opposed to taking readings and all of that. That’s why I like the wild cellar so much, too. But thank god for those scientist guys, too.”

As with beer, good wine starts in the field. There is an agricultural ethos called biodynamic, an organic and holistic farming practice that treats the land and crops in a closed loop system. Biodynamic wines have been around for a while, and have a good reputation. All of Block 15’s wines use biodynamic grapes.

“It’s way better fruit. You hold these grape clusters in your hand, and it’s the platonic ideal of a grape cluster,” says Schmidt. Arzner makes a gesture indicating something larger than his head. “You don’t get that when buying conventional fruit. We’re not washing the fruit, we rely on it having yeast from the vineyard on it. We’re not adding sulfites, so it’s gotta be good fruit.”

If you’ve wondered about the difference in price and quality between a wine in the biodynamic or natural niche and, say, Stoller, Schmidt’s assessment cuts deep. Wine producers who rely on selling large quantities are beholden to time and flavor standards, which minimizes their ability to attend to the quality of fruit. They often manipulate finished wine with acids and tannins to achieve depth and complexity.

While there are no rules, just choices and opinions, when it comes to who drinks what or why, it makes sense that a small producer – very small in the case of these three breweries – would set high standards at the outset and want to communicate that to its customers in a demonstrable way.

Plus, brewers are all about showcasing. Look at a can of IPA, and you’re likely to find the names of the hop varieties listed, if not boldly emblazoned, thereon. During fresh hop season, especially, you’ll find the name of the farm where the hops were grown.

Grape harvest is a crazy time of year, with tons of fruit that needs to be dealt with immediately, whether it stays at the vineyard or gets shipped out. Process decisions must be made daily from the crush through early fermentation, and there are some curious ways of manipulating the fruit that affect the final product. This is where Arzner and Schmidt really get to play.

“We can store hops and grains, pull from that however we want,” Arzner says. “With wine, the vineyards say, ‘Hey Garrison, we’re dropping off your grapes tonight.’ With beer you get to think about it over time.”

Block’s wines are divided into two programs: younger wines, bottled a year after harvest, and older, perhaps more traditional wines. From the former comes Lupine, a blend of skin-contact pinot gris and pressed (white) pinot noir. It’s somewhat backwards, since the color comes from the traditionally white pinot gris.

Block 15 also subscribes to the natural-ish lifestyle for its wines. “I get a sense that ‘natural wine’ is a distinction that we make in the US,” Arzner says, less warily than Rogers. “A natural wine is not necessarily funky. I’m interested in the term low intervention. We’re trying to corral this stallion. And when wine expresses native yeast in a way, it can be fun, but I won’t necessarily drink three glasses of it.”

Lupine, a blend from the 2021 harvest, is a lively ruby red, with cherry and berry aromas. Arzner called out “pencil shavings,” and I thought he was being weird until, through the power of suggestion, I saw what he was talking about.

The cause of that is hiding in the shadows: brettanomyces. It’s cringe-inducing for most winemakers, as it can cause a wine to smell like a hamster cage. In this case, it’s just a touch, and its earthy funk blends in with the background oak flavor.

As a riposte, I declared the 2021 Pinot Noir to have aromas of “used bookstore,” and was not booted from the taproom. Not to undersell it, this vintage is rich and ripe, well balanced with acid and tannin (“structure,” it’s called), and really calling for some blue cheese at this point.

Most wine will ferment dry – no residual sugar – if given the opportunity. A taste of the Chalet Rouge 2021 was a startling revelation. At 15% alcohol, it’s a whopper. A blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Vigonier grapes from the Willamette Valley and Eastern Washington, it is – excuse my beeriness coming through – the barleywine of wines. One would never expect such a lusciously full body from a dry wine. Even though it felt sweet, it cleared the palate without a sticky residue.

Arzner intends to push boundaries as the wine program evolves. “In the first year we tried a dozen different ways; carbonic maceration, whole cluster… something different comes out of all those. We figure out what we like and what is successful – no one’s coming to us saying they want a traditional glass of wine.”

A limited amount of Block 15’s wine is available in bottles, and is on tap at both of their locations.

Alesong’s First Pour

The idea for this article germinated while Brian Coombs was talking to my homebrew club about Alesong’s new wine during one of our meetings. He had moved on, maybe to their fancy new pasteurizer (also very cool), but my wheels were spinning.

Alesong released its 2022 Dundee Hills Pinot Gris in the fall of 2023 (and its first cider earlier in the year), and it is clean, sparkling, and lovely. I brought a bottle home after the meeting, and forgot that Alesong barrel-ages everything it makes. The oaky flavors (surprise!) act as a grounding counterpoint to the carbonation, and complement the classic pear-ish fruity character of the wine.

What got me was Coombs’ excitement about being able to do whatever he wanted to the wine. In this case, it was carbonation; tame enough, but effectively applied. Many wineries don’t have tanks that can hold enough pressure to add bubbles to their wine; Alesong certainly does.

Part of Alesong’s success as a brewery comes partially from accessing and wisely using the many tools and techniques available for manipulating two warehouses of barrels filled with beer into lushly flavored, nuanced blends. The brewery’s motif – everything is barrel-aged – is informed by Coombs’ and co-founder Matt Van Wyk’s collective experience.

Van Wyk was padawan to Todd Ashman, who pioneered barrel-aging beer in the 90s, and now produces the highly regarded Eclipse series at 50/50 Brewing. Van Wyk plied his chops in Eugene at Oakshire Brewing, where he put big beers, like the annual Hellshire release, and wild ales, like Hermanne 1882, into the local vernacular.

Coombs worked with Van Wyk at Oakshire, and then left to work a harvest at King Estate while planning to launch Alesong. “I learned more and was more inspired in that six-month period than the years prior of just making beer,” Coombs says.

“I wanted to make wine after Matt and I made our first wine-beer-hybrid at Oakshire in 2013. This was the first time I really experienced a working winery cellar and saw it in full harvest mode.

“The PNW wine scene greatly influenced the development of Alesong and is why we opened with a club model and a tasting room 20 miles outside of town in wine country. From the get-go, Alesong was primarily going to make barrel-aged beer, but wine and cider were always part of the dream. Between my experience at King Estate, all the wine/beer hybrids we make, and [Coombs’ brother] Doug’s background working in the Sonoma/Russian River wine scene, it’s a very natural fit for us.

“Another factor is that one of the core values of Alesong is to utilize local and fresh ingredients as much as possible, and we live and brew in a premier growing region. It all just fits.”

It’s hard to ignore a thread of rebellion as these brewers approach winemaking. “As brewers in the Northwest, we are pretty good at understanding tradition, respecting it, but then doing our own thing.”

Alesong’s proximity, both literal and figurative, to wine country can be seen in its marketing. Each new beverage gets its own intro video on the website, where one of the staff explains the inspiration, ingredients, and production process; the fun bits, something to get you thinking about it. “We brand and market our wine like our beer. Which I guess is to say, we brand it like wine because we generally market our beer more like wine.”

Like the other two breweries in this article, there is a specificity of intention that is communicated directly to the consumer. It’s not hype or loud colors, it’s regular people telling you what went on, hoping you’ll be open to trying it. It’s confidence in their product.

While confidence is a great and positive thing to put out there, it doesn’t equal money. Again, many folks might wonder about the business aspect of putting in all the work to make small amounts of wine.

“I can’t speak with total confidence to why other brewers have started brewing non-beer beverages like RTD [ready to drink] cocktails and hard seltzer,” says Coombs, “but my take is that it was mainly a smart business decision. The craft beer market is changing dramatically and larger regional brewers or breweries that primarily operate in the wholesale market need to be nimble based on consumer changes and demands.

“Alesong making wine definitely doesn’t fall into that category – if we were totally focused on smart business decisions, we would have started canning IPA and seltzers years ago…”

So glad we are that they didn’t. Instead of relying on a cabinet full of Torani syrup and aseptic fruit puree, Alesong takes calculated risks. Coombs isn’t dead-set on the biodynamic or natural wine moniker. He has a background in chemistry, and knows when to use it.

“We are not setting out to put up strict guardrails for any of our production. If I have the option to buy biodynamic fruit over organic or conventional, I will. If I have the option to make something that tastes awesome by not touching it or adding anything to it, I will. But if I can make a wine (or any Alesong beverage for that matter) better by using a tool in my toolkit, I will always err on the side of making something that I think tastes awesome rather than corner myself into a particular niche.

“So far, our awesome community of club members and tasting room visitors are enjoying it as much as we do.”

Frank Zappa once said, “I make music for myself and my friends.” The fact that the rest of us are able to listen to and enjoy that music is a fortunate fact of our existence, no matter the artist. The whole craft beer movement is predicated on a similar notion. Over time, though, our niche matured into an industry; experimentation has given way to consistency, which doesn’t quite scratch the creative itch.

Each of these folks, having already stretched the fabric of the beer universe in their own ways, are producing wine mainly because it makes them happy. They’ll tinker and tweak at their own whims, and if you happen to look deep into the glass and like what you see… well, good.

Post script: I find it delightful that Block 15 is at the center of all this. A couple years ago, the brewery started its own distributorship, and carries a bunch of great Oregon brands, including de Garde. And Alesong, which does not have its own brewhouse, produces its wort at Block 15, and then transports it to Eugene for fermentation and barrel-aging. So it goes.

Further: Dwinell Country Ales in Goldendale, WA released its first wines in May of 2023, and also makes cider to complement its array of wild and standard beers. The wine is, naturally, natural. See the full menu here and do make it a point to visit if you’re anywhere near there.