Brick House

There’s been a lot of shake-up in the wine industry in recent years, and the Willamette Valley is no exception. Large international firms have continued to buy up properties as the valley grows and the region becomes more recognizable to consumers. There are many reasons to welcome development, but one can’t help but be charmed, and more than a little pleased, to visit Brick House winery in the Ribbon Ridge appellation, where Doug Tunnell and his family have crafted organic and biodynamically farmed wines for more than three decades. The winery is small yet inviting, a mix of stainless steel winery equipment, sturdy wooden furniture and cozy armchairs. Just outside the door, the vineyard and cover crop are exceedingly green — no sign of herbicides or pesticides — and an herbal note floats in the wind from the wall of fir trees beyond the vines. Tunnell committed to sustainable farming from the very beginning — he first planted vines in 1990 and had them certified organic that same year. In 2005 the vineyards were certified biodynamic, and even the Brick House winery is certified organic — an extra step most wineries do not undergo during the certification process. Sustainability feels simple here: this is where the grapes grow, where the wine is made and where Tunnel and his family live. His farming is simple yet thoughtful, having adhered to basic principles like composting and using native yeasts since the beginning. “Organic” and “biodynamic” are buzzwords now and are even beginning to give way to newer, stricter certifications. Yet the widespread acceptance of these agricultural methods in the US wine business is possible because of people like Tunnell, who showed others that conventional farming — even in a cool, wet, nascent wine region — should be rejected. Brick House is now one of the most widely recognized wineries in the Willamette Valley, and Tunnell has offered guidance, encouragement and inspiration for farmers in Oregon and beyond. As one of the first biodynamic wineries to achieve fame in the US, Brick House has become synonymous with the term — each bottle is emblazoned with the words “Made with Biodynamic grapes” and is instantly recognizable. Although the brand is small — they produce less than 4,000 cases a year — Tunnell’s influence is outsized and a cause for celebration.

It’s fairly unusual, in the course of wine research, to discover a 30-year winemaking veteran on imdb.com — an online database for films and other types of entertainment media — with credits that include "48 Hours" and "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite". Although he grew up in Oregon, Doug Tunnell spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent for CBS before leaving network news. He returned to the Willamette Valley after learning that Domaine Drouhin, a negociant in Burgundy, had purchased land there to grow grapes. In 1990, in what would later become the Ribbon Ridge appellation, he bought a 40-acre farm previously planted to an orchard. On the property was an old brick house built in 1928, where he and his wife Melissa Mills still live, and a red barn that he converted into a winery. He planted Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and a bit of Gamay and focused from the start on sustainable farming, having his vineyards certified organic that first year. By 2005, Brick House became certified biodynamic in an effort to use less copper, which can pollute the soil over time. Tunnell released his first wines in 1993 with the help of Steve Dorner, who showed the self-taught winemaker the ropes. Brick House is now synonymous with biodynamic practices, in part for the “Made with Biodynamic grapes” slogan that has long been emblazoned on its labels. A small, family-run operation, case production is low at around 3,000-4,000 a year, yet three decades later, the wines continue to offer notable quality-to-price ratio.