Evesham Wood

Evesham Wood is a small, family-owned winery in the Eola-Amity Hills above Salem, at the heart of Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Founded in 1986 by Russ and Mary Raney, it built an early reputation for restraint and elegance at a time when many Oregon Pinots chased sheer power. In 2010 the Raneys passed the winery and its organically farmed Le Puits Sec estate vineyard to Erin and Jordan Nuccio, who had apprenticed under Russ and already made wine under their own Haden Fig label. The Nuccios have carried the house style forward with care, and Evesham Wood remains one of the valley’s most quietly respected addresses.

The focus is Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, drawn from the roughly 12-acre Le Puits Sec estate and a handful of trusted dry-farmed sites across the Eola-Amity Hills, several of them certified organic. Winemaking is deliberately low-intervention: native fermentations, dry farming, and a hands-off approach in the cellar meant to let each vineyard and vintage speak. The wines are Burgundian in spirit, balanced and site-driven rather than showy, and they have long been prized as some of the best values in Oregon.

Tastings are held in the cabin at the top of the vineyard, reached by a three-quarter-mile driveway off Wallace Road. The experience is unhurried and conversational, built around the current releases and the land they come from. For guests who want to dig deeper, a longer by-appointment visit adds a walk through the winery, the historic wine library, and the estate caves, and in truffle season the forest on the property even opens for responsible foraging paired with a tasting.

The setting is classic Eola-Amity Hills: rolling, wind-swept slopes cooled by the Van Duzer Corridor, with marine sedimentary and volcanic soils that give the wines their lift and length. For travelers looking past the valley’s larger names, Evesham Wood offers a genuine, grounded taste of what Oregon Pinot Noir was always meant to be.