ELAINE BROWN Hawk Waka Waka Wine Reviews (Sonoma, CA)

Based in Sonoma, California, Elaine Chukan Brown serves as the American Specialist for JancisRobinson.com, is a contributing writer to Wine & Spirits, and a columnist for Wine Business Monthly. Her work has also been featured in The World of Fine Wine, The Robb Report, Decanter, MensHealth.com, San Francisco Magazine, among others, and appears on her own website, WakawakaWineReviews.com. Elaine is known for having created illustrated tasting notes, which have been described by @KermitLynchWine as “a new standard in wine reviews.” Prior to her career in wine, Elaine served as a philosophy professor at Northern Arizona University. She was Dartmouth College’s Charles A. Eastman Fellow, and a Tomlinson Fellow at McGill University, where she did her doctoral work. Prior to her career in philosophy, Elaine was a commercial salmon fisherman in Bristol Bay, Alaska, where the rest of her family still operate their businesses.

JOSH BERGSTRÖM Bergström Wines Newberg, Oregon

Bergström Wines is a family-owned and operated artisan producer of Pinot noir and Chardonnay. The winery was established in 1998 by Dr. John and Karen Bergström, with the help of their son Josh Bergström and his wife Caroline. Josh Bergström has been crafting Pinot noir and Chardonnay in Oregon’s Willamette Valley for 22 years.  He is owner, general manager and winemaker at his family’s eponymous winery Bergström Wines in Newberg, Oregon where he and his team farm 85 acres of Biodynamic® Pinot noir and Chardonnay from five different sub-AVAs of the northern Willamette Valley. A native Oregonian, Josh studied business at the University of Oregon before going on to receive a postgraduate degree in viticulture and enology in Beaune, France where he met his wife Caroline, a native Burgundian, who studied wine and spirits marketing at the famed Lycée Viticole de Beaune. Together, they roamed the Burgundian hillside villages, depleting communal stores of wine, bread, jambon persillé and almost made escargots an endangered species before returning to Oregon to co-direct their family winery.  

JULIA CATTRALL Lumos Wine Co. Philomath, Oregon

Dai Crisp and PK McCoy started the Lumos Wine Company in 2000, the vintage after they moved to their family farm, Wren Vineyard, which was originally planted in 1985. Beginning with Pinot noir and Chardonnay from Wren, Lumos was dedicated to expressing what was specific and unique about the farm and its fruit. Staying true to that ideal, Lumos has grown to produce wines from the three sites Dai and his dauntless crew tend: Wren, Logsdon Ridge, and Temperance Hill, all certified USDA/Oregon organic vineyards. Winemaker Julia Cattrall and cellar wizard Ryan Kelly-Burnett blend this philosophy of intentionality and responsibility into their craft, transforming Dai’s viticulture into a roster of five white varietals and six Pinot noir wines. The Lumos team is proud to offer wines that are each their own particular illumination of the people, land, and work that are the inimitable magic behind Lumos.

BRIAN O’DONNELL Belle Pente Carlton, Oregon

Belle Pente was established in 1992 when Jill and Brian O’Donnell purchased a historic 70-acre farm in what is now the heart of the Willamette Valley’s Yamhill-Carlton AVA.  Planting the estate vineyard began in 1994, and the first Pinot noir was produced in 1996.  Belle Pente means “beautiful slope,” a perfect description for the steep hillside vineyard site.  The name also implies a commitment to making wines gently and naturally, capturing the essence of each individual vineyard site, and reflective of the vintage.  The estate vineyard now includes twelve acres of mature Pinot noir vines densely planted in shallow marine sedimentary soils, and dry-farmed using organic and biodynamic practices.

KEN PAHLOW Walter Scott Wines Salem, Oregon

Walter Scott was started in 2008 by partners Ken Pahlow and Erica Landon after years of living, studying, and working within the Oregon wine industry. Ken spent 18 years working for some of Oregon’s top winemakers, learning both production and marketing. Erica is both an Advanced Sommelier and wine educator, focusing much of her passion on the Willamette Valley. In 2012, Sue and Andy Steinman joined the winery, helping the business realize goals and grow production to 3,000 cases. The winery specializes in Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Pinot blanc from exceptional vineyards sourced primarily from the Eola-Amity Hills AVA of the Willamette Valley. Ken & Erica’s focus is to produce wines of elegance and purity, while conveying transparency of site and character of vintage.

LYNN PENNER-ASH Penner-Ash Wine Cellars Newberg, Oregon

Penner-Ash Wine Cellars embodies the spirit and passion of small producers focusing on Pinot noir in the northern Willamette Valley of Oregon. Lynn Penner-Ash was lured to Oregon by Rex Hill Vineyards in 1988, after working for many years in premier wineries in the Napa Valley. Lynn and her husband Ron started Penner-Ash Wine Cellars in 1998.  In the winery, the focus is on small-lot indigenous yeast fermentation with extended cold soaks to extract a rich, fruit-focused and textured mouth feel. Each lot is treated individually and depending on the outcome, either blended into a reserve-quality Willamette Valley Pinot noir, or bottled separately as a vineyard designate. The Penner-Ash winery and tasting room sit amid 15 acres of estate Pinot noir vineyards, with breathtaking and expansive views of the vineyard and the valley, bound by the Chehalem Mountains to the north and the Red Hills of Dundee to the south.

PATRICK REUTER Dominio IV McMinnville, Oregon

Dominio IV is a family-grown winery started in 2002 by Leigh Bartholomew, viticulturist, and Patrick Reuter, winemaker. Over the last 16 years, Dominio IV has continued to grow in diversity working with eight different varieties and developing two biodynamically-farmed, estate vineyards located in the Columbia Gorge and Yamhill-Carlton AVAs. The ultimate goal is to produce something that speaks to you from the glass, makes you slow down, and enjoy the conversation.