Corollary Wines Opens Amity Tasting Room

Some of the first visitors to Corollary Wines’ new tasting room in Amity, Oregon, were greeted by a herd of sheep in a patch of grass near the long gravel driveway before they approached the bright red angular building at the top of the hill.

Corollary Wines co-owners Dan Diephouse and Jeanne Feldkamp hired the sheep to help control thistles, clover, and grass from plots around their grapes—a sustainable method Feldkamp learned while studying Permaculture Design through Oregon State University‘s online program.

“When we saw this land, we knew we wanted to focus on regenerative agriculture and permaculture,” Feldkamp said about the 57-acre former timberland. “If we are going to do this, we want to make sure we do it the right way.”

Feldkamp and Diephouse officially opened Corollary Wines’ all-sparkling tasting room on Thursday, May 23, 2024, after several years of pouring flights out of Willamette Valley wineries and restaurants, including Newberg’s Ruddick/Wood.

“It’s a little surreal that we’re here,” Feldkamp said. “We’re excited—tired too, but we’re ready to open.”

Diephouse and Feldkamp were working in California’s Bay Area when they found themselves increasingly interested in wine, specifically sparkling wine. Both working in tech, they knew the industry’s reputation for burnout and started exploring “crazy ideas” for their next venture.

“We tasted a few sparkling wines from the Willamette Valley, and the quality was outstanding,” Diephouse said. “Sparkling wine was something we were passionate about, so we started looking more into it.”

Feldkamp and Diephouse decided to make the move to Oregon. They made a few batches of wine in a friend’s urban winery, and when they enjoyed the result, they started seriously considering starting their own wine label. Corollary Wines released its first vintage in 2017.

“We’ve got the right climate out here, especially at higher elevation,” Diephouse said. “The right varieties grow out here, there’s great farming expertise—it was an alignment between passion and the right place, and then the excitement about the potential.”

Part of introducing an all-sparkling lineup meant they wanted to make traditional sparkling wine.

Corollary practices traditional Champagne methods, wherein the fermented wine is moved into bottles with a touch of sugar and yeast, restarting a small fermentation in the bottle that adds more character and natural carbonation to the finished product. The process is more time-intensive and costly than another popular methods for carbonation (e.g. force carbonation, where winemakers push pure CO2 gas directly into the wine), but the Corollary owners know if they’re going to be all sparkling, they better do it the right way.

“We want to be sure the wine is showing the best of the region,” Diephouse said. “Taking the extra effort to make that happen is worth it.”

Corollary Wines didn’t always plan to open a tasting room. They changed their tune after learning about the 13-acre parcel in the Eola-Amity Hills, which overlooks the Willamette Valley on one side and the Van Duzer Corridor on the other.

While many factors contribute to Oregon’s prolific wine region, the Van Duzer Corridor is one of the often-cited reasons. According to Wine History Tours, the wind brings a “Diurnal Temperature Difference (DTD), which is when the temperatures drop lower at night than during the day.”

This phenomenon slows the grape ripening process, bringing more flavor complexity. Pair the corridor’s impact with higher elevation, which also contributes to the grapes’ flavor complexity—specifically for sparkling wines—and you’ve got a recipe that Diephouse and Feldkamp feel shows the best of what the region has to offer.

And with high scores from leading wine publications—their 2019 Cuvée One Sparkling earned a 96 rating from Wine Enthusiast, their 2018 Winter’s Hill Sparkling Pinot Blanc scored a 97, and the list goes on—the critics seem to agree. But for the Corollary team, it’s not all about the scores.

“The point isn’t to get good scores,” Feldkamp said. “It’s great, but there is more to us than that. The point is to highlight the land and where it was produced. We want to bring awareness to where we are and the work of the people who have contributed to this region’s success. And also, to contribute to the Willamette Valley’s sparkling wine conversation.”

With their new, striking tasting room—a combination of an angular red building designed by the Portland-based architecture firm Waechter Architecture (who also designed Furioso Vineyard‘s tasting room) surrounded by skinny, tall Oregon white oak trees and freshly planted vines deep in the hills around Amity—they’ve positioned themselves among other Willamette Valley sparkling wine houses like Arabilis, Argyle, Soter, and R. Stuart.

But their mission, alongside expressing the beauty of the sparkling wine from the Willamette Valley, is to remind people that sparkling wine is just wine.

“There’s this idea that sparkling wine needs to accompany some occasion,” Feldkamp said. “But we think sparkling wine is for any occasion. Did you have a good day? Did you have a bad day? Is it Tuesday? Did you graduate? Get a job? They all work with a little bubbles.”

Corollary Wines’ tasting room is open by reservation only from Thursday through Monday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m, with tastings led by Feldkamp and Diephouse. Wine industry workers are invited to visit Corollary (by reservation) on June 3, 2024.

And if you visit soon, you might even get to see the lamb wandering around with the sheep herd munching away at some invasive weeds.