St. Innocent Winery was founded in 1988 by Mark Vlossak who continues to be our winemaker and President. We produce small lots of handmade, vineyard-designated wine from some of the best sites in the Willamette Valley. Since our founding, we have grown from 600 cases that first year to our current production of 8-10,000 cases, yet each wine is still handcrafted in the very same manner. Year after year, St. Innocent Winery has received recognition from throughout the country and around the world for its outstanding Pinot noir, beautifully crafted white wines, and fair pricing.
By marrying tradition with innovation, combining old world attention to detail with cutting edge inspiration, Mark creates wines that reflect their terroir, the specific qualities of the vintage, and his vision of wine's place in life: to complement and extend the pleasure of food.
We produce vineyard designated Pinot noir from six unique sites, as well as a blended Pinot called the “Villages Cuvée”. Our Pinot gris and Pinot blanc emulate the Alsatian style. They are produced from low cropped, ripe fruit, and are fermented dry to emphasize textural complexity. Our Chardonnay originates from a mineral dominated terroir planted with Dijon clones. By fermenting and lees aging in used barrels, we achieve a balance between textural complexity and minerality.
Mark believes that great wines start in the vineyard. Farming techniques that respect the earth enhance the ability of the land to reveal its unique flavors and textures. This is the essential first step in producing wines that reflect their terroir. We practice sustainable, organic and biodynamic farming and access fruit from vineyards employing all of these techniques. Much of the vineyard work focuses on achieving balance in the vines, allowing the plants to produce the best fruit even under difficult conditions.
St. Innocent's Estate Vineyard is Zenith Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA of the northern Willamette Valley. In addition, we lease specific bocks of vineyard from eight of Oregon's top growers to produce a wide range of vineyard designated wines. Maintaining a close working relationship with our growers allows collaborative fine tuning of viticultural techniques to produce the best possible fruit, further focusing and defining the flavors and aromas in the wine.
In 2006, 18 years after St. Innocent was founded, we designed and constructed our facility at Zenith Vineyard. At its core, we built a place to make great wine, optimizing each step in the winemaking process for both our staff and the wines we produce. Grapes begin their transformation into wine by being sorted inside, under temperature-controlled conditions, with perfect lighting to ensure only the best fruit is used. They move by gravity into the fermenters and presses. The fermented wines rest underground in our naturally humidified and cooled barrel room, undisturbed throughout the aging process. All our wines are racked without pumping and bottled by gravity.
In producing Pinot noir, Mark's winemaking goal is to create wines that display their provenance: the site's terroir, the character of the vintage and the personality of the winemaker. To accomplish these goals, he picks ripe fruit at the point of maximum flavor complexity and ferments the fruit to extract the exact balance of flavor and tannins desired. After gently pressing the must, the wine is settled and racked to barrel for aging. We use new barrels only to define and support the vineyard's terroir.
Texture is an essential component in all St. Innocent wines. The way our wine moves in your mouth and the way it interacts with food are central to their personality. The wine from each site displays its unique fruit character, the many secondary flavors specific to the terroir of the site (spice, pepper, mushroom, earth, etc.), and their own unique textures. We make wines for enjoying with food as well as wines that will develop with aging.
The winery is open 11-5 from Tuesday-Sunday February 1st through November 30th, and 11-5 Friday through Sunday, for December and January. We are also open Memorial Day and Thanksgiving weekends, when we prepare a variety of foods to pair with our new releases. The menu includes our winemaker's signature cassoulet, herbed leg of Oregon lamb, international cheeses and breads from Grand Central Baking Company. You may schelule a private tour and barrel tasting at other times by calling for an appointment.
Winemaker: Mark Vlossak
Tasting Room Manager: Felice Leonhardt
Cellar Master: Randy Byrnes
Assistant Winemaker: Rich Swanger