Our story began in 2015 when two close friends decided to follow dreams of grape production and quality winemaking. A small vineyard of Maréchal Foch, a hybrid French-American grape, was thus planted along the beautiful McKenzie River outside of Springfield, Oregon. In what has sometimes been dubbed "an experiment that went very, very right", McKenzie Crest went onto produce two fruit-driven expressions of Maréchal Foch in 2018 and 2019.
Fast forward to 2020 and McKenzie Crest Wines fully came to life with the production of Pinot Noir, Tempranillo and Maréchal Foch from the Willamette Valley. In addition, we introduced Merlot to our line-up from the exciting and diverse Columbia Valley AVA. The 2020 vintage brought forth two Rosé wines, produced from Pinot Noir and Tempranillo; stand alone expressions of Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Merlot, Maréchal Foch, and a 50/50 blend of Tempranillo and Merlot appropriately labeled "Tempest". The 2021 vintage looks to see McKenzie Crest Wines scale up in production and we are excited to offer our wines for retail in 2022.
McKenzie Crest Wines is the collective product of hard work, labors of love, Dan's excellent vineyard management and passion to plant, grow and harvest quality grapes, Chris's intensive research and exploration of Oregon and Washington wines and growing regions, and their combined efforts to produce high quality wines.
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