Estate Vineyard & Family Farm
Tyee Wine Cellars is located on the scenic Buchanan Family Century Farm founded over 130 years ago in the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley. The Buchanans settled here in the 1850s and earlier generations ran an all purpose farm by growing wheat, animal feed and livestock.
Third generation Buchanans raised Jersey cows to run a dairy and built a milking parlor that still stands today as Tyee's Tasting Parlor. The fourth generation, Dave and Margy Buchanan, planted the first winegrapes in 1974 and founded Tyee Wine Cellars in 1985 along with raising sheep and planting hazelnuts.
Today the family farm is operated cooperatively by fourth and fifth generation family farmers. The farm remains a diverse operation, with an estate vineyard and winery, tasting parlor and historic barn events facility, hiking trails and picnic tables through hazelnut orchards, cathedral oak trees and Willamette Valley native woodlands and wetlands.
Visitors to Tyee Wine Cellars are welcome to enjoy wine tasting and picnicking on our family farm and vineyard in a variety of scenic locations or hikes along Tyee's Beaver Pond Loop Nature Trail and conservation easement.
Five family generations have revered the farm's open spaces, woodlands, wetlands and streams while growing crops in a sustainable manner. Good wines remember the grapes of their origin. We believe sharing Tyee Estate wines with you is perhaps the most sublime expression of the land.
The first vines were planted in Tyee Estate Vineyard in 1974 with subsequent plantings throughout the 1980s. These vines of Pommard Pinot noir, Pinot gris, Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer are Tyee's self-rooted old vines. In 2000, we added Dijon clones 115, 777, Pommard Pinot noir and Pinot gris and Gewurztraminer on resistant rootstock. Then in 2014, we planted more Pinot noir with 114, 777, Pommard and grafts of some of our favorite old vines along with Gewurztraminer on resistant rootstock. Tyee Estate Vineyard is 15 acres of vines on Willamette soil.
Tyee's Estate Vineyard is Certified Salmon-Safe. In addition to following the Salmon-Safe ecolabel standards for sustainable agriculture, we maintain a cover crop under our vines year-round to sequester carbon and prevent erosion. We protect nearby creeks with native riparian buffers that enhance habitat for fish, birds and wildlife. We apply only minimal amounts of organically acceptable spray to our grapes and use organic compost for fertility. During harvest only non-lethal scare tactics are used to discourage birds and wildlife from eating our grapes.
Tyee Wine Cellars is a small, family owned and operated winery with a limited production of only 2000 cases annually. Tyee's Winemaker, Merrilee Buchanan Benson, is a fifth generation Willamette Valley farmer who grew up with the vines at Tyee. She and her husband, Brian Benson, manage Tyee Estate Vineyard and the traditional winemaking process at Tyee Wine Cellars. A solar panel at Tyee supplies power for the winery and events area.
Very friendly staff here, highly worth a stop and visit.