2021 Bethel Heights Estate Pinot Noir
Eola-Amity Hills
Live Certified Sustainable Wine
Winemaker Notes
About Bethel Heights Vineyard
SUSTAINABLY GROWN WINE
When our family arrived at Bethel Heights in 1977 we found a flourishing ecosystem in place: healthy living soils, a stream running through a shady ravine fed by a pure clean spring, and a rich diversity of flora and fauna with which we try to live in peace. Above all else we seek to grow our grapes and make our wine without diminishing the vibrant life of this place.
Twenty-five acres at Bethel Heights are set aside as a natural wooded riparian area.
We maintain a permanent green cover in the vine rows to build healthy soils, to sequester carbon, to mitigate erosion, to retain moisture, to promote maximum biodiversity above and below ground, and to allow the unseen mycorrhiza beneath our feet to thrive and continue their symbiotic relationship with our vines.
We have farmed without herbicides since 2009, without tilling the soil since 2012, and without any synthetic inputs whatsoever since 2019.
In the winery we are transitioning to significantly less carbon-intensive packaging, and significantly less water and energy use. Solar panels installed in 2010 provide 60% of our energy needs.
We recognize that we owe our success in all our endeavors to the people who work here, in the vineyard and in the winery, and we strive to share our success in a just distribution of benefits.
Certifications
We know of no certification program that encompasses everything that matters for the future of Bethel Heights, for our community, and for the planet, but we choose to certify what we can, to provide some assurance to our customers.
Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard are certified organic, sealing our commitment to farming our crop without any use of synthetic chemicals.
Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard have been LIVE Certified since 1997. Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights was one of the founders of LIVE, which requires a comprehensive certification of the whole farm, not just the crop, based on continual reduction of off-farm inputs by reliance on natural processes. LIVE winery certification requires reduction of energy and water consumption in the winery.
United by our interest in wine, in 1977 Ted Casteel, Pat Dudley, Terry Casteel, and Marilyn Webb abandoned the academic life and, together with Pat’s sister Barbara Dudley, bought 75 promising-looking acres northwest of Salem, with 14 acres of newly planted cuttings in the ground. We moved to the vineyard in 1978 (except Barbara, who was in California working as a lawyer for farmworkers with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board) and started a new life. In 1979 we cleared and planted 36 more acres. In 1981 we harvested our first crop and started home winemaking in Terry’s basement. In 1984 we produced our first commercial vintage of 3000 cases: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Gewurztraminer, all Estate Grown.
For the first thirty years Ted was responsible for managing the vineyards and Terry made the wine. Pat and Marilyn shared responsibilities for marketing and business management. Over thirty years we grew our wine production to 10,000 cases, and made common cause with our fellow pioneers to establish the Willamette Valley as the home of New World Pinot Noir.
Meanwhile, five cousins grew up knowing the tidy rows and wild hidden places of Bethel Heights as their backyard playground, science lab and adventure park. Now they have taken their places as co-owners, co-workers, and stewards of this place.
In 2005 Ben Casteel (son of Terry and Marilyn) took over from his father as Winemaker at Bethel Heights. In 2007 Jon Casteel (second son of Terry and Marilyn) launched Casteel Custom Bottling, a mobile bottling company that serves wineries throughout Oregon, including Bethel Heights of course. Mimi Casteel (daughter of Ted and Pat) worked with the family at Bethel Heights until 2017 when she started farming her own vineyard at Hope Well, and launched her Hope Well Wine project. Jessie Casteel grew up among the vines at Bethel Heights, but now lives in Chicago. Jessie brings a creative outlier perspective to the direction of the family business, and serves as our ambassador in Chicago and points east.
Now there is a new generation of cousins – ten so far – who all come home to Bethel Heights for family occasions, to eat the blackberries and taste the grapes and pat the goats and walk through the ravine to Mr. Hatcher’s haunted house. This place is now for them too.
Eola-Amity Hills
Live Certified Sustainable Wine
Winemaker Notes
About Bethel Heights Vineyard
SUSTAINABLY GROWN WINE
When our family arrived at Bethel Heights in 1977 we found a flourishing ecosystem in place: healthy living soils, a stream running through a shady ravine fed by a pure clean spring, and a rich diversity of flora and fauna with which we try to live in peace. Above all else we seek to grow our grapes and make our wine without diminishing the vibrant life of this place.
Twenty-five acres at Bethel Heights are set aside as a natural wooded riparian area.
We maintain a permanent green cover in the vine rows to build healthy soils, to sequester carbon, to mitigate erosion, to retain moisture, to promote maximum biodiversity above and below ground, and to allow the unseen mycorrhiza beneath our feet to thrive and continue their symbiotic relationship with our vines.
We have farmed without herbicides since 2009, without tilling the soil since 2012, and without any synthetic inputs whatsoever since 2019.
In the winery we are transitioning to significantly less carbon-intensive packaging, and significantly less water and energy use. Solar panels installed in 2010 provide 60% of our energy needs.
We recognize that we owe our success in all our endeavors to the people who work here, in the vineyard and in the winery, and we strive to share our success in a just distribution of benefits.
Certifications
We know of no certification program that encompasses everything that matters for the future of Bethel Heights, for our community, and for the planet, but we choose to certify what we can, to provide some assurance to our customers.
Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard are certified organic, sealing our commitment to farming our crop without any use of synthetic chemicals.
Bethel Heights Vineyard and Justice Vineyard have been LIVE Certified since 1997. Ted Casteel of Bethel Heights was one of the founders of LIVE, which requires a comprehensive certification of the whole farm, not just the crop, based on continual reduction of off-farm inputs by reliance on natural processes. LIVE winery certification requires reduction of energy and water consumption in the winery.