Three Anniversaries

Wine in Oregon is reaching the stage where there are lots of “round number” anniversaries to celebrate. Here are three that are all reaching 25 years in 2026

L–R: The Albins, Rob Stuart, the Leutholds

The year was 2001.

Y2K's predicted chaos receded in the rearview mirror, and Oregon counted about 130 bonded wineries with around 100 more in Washington.

The aftermath of that year's Sept. 11 attacks was yet to come. So were the Great Recession and COVID-19. By 2026, Oregon wineries alone numbered more than 1,000.

But none of that could have been foreseen by three Northwest brands celebrating their 25th anniversary this year: Maryhill Winery, Six Peaks Winery and R. Stuart & Co.

All three family stories thread through years of rapid growth in the Northwest wine industry. The pursuit of dreams and personal goals also emerges in each narrative, driving these dedicated producers to reach this year's milestone.

MAPPING THEIR FUTURE

John and Lynn Albin of Six Peaks Winery met while studying at UC Davis. John's degree in fermentation science was the culmination of a fascination with wine that began in his childhood in Seattle, when he helped his father vinify grapes from California's Central Valley. Soon, early plantings of wine grapes in Washington made local sourcing possible, and Six Peaks continues to source fruit from Walla Walla for a portfolio spanning a wide variety of styles.

The pair graduated from college with the dream of planting a vineyard and making wine. Poring over maps and weather logs of the northern Willamette Valley, they settled on a piece of property near Hillsboro in 1980. Bald Peak's high elevation, between 800 and 1,000 feet, was especially appealing because they hoped to make sparkling wine.

As the vineyard developed, John worked for Washington breweries to pay the bills. Lynn's degree was in animal sciences, and her expertise in fish habitats brought her to the University of Washington to assess fish survival in the wake of the Mount St. Helens eruption. For many years, their vineyard supplied fruit to other producers while both worked outside jobs.

LEARNING FROM PIONEERS

Like the Albins, Rob Stuart's early years touched UC Davis and eastern Washington, eventually leading him to establish R. Stuart & Co. in McMinnville. Stuart and the Albins also share a lifelong fascination with sparkling wine — an underappreciated prequel to the current renaissance of Oregon bubbles.

Around 1980, he remembers Professor Dinsmoor Webb at UC Davis saying, "You know, you can go to Oregon. They have a few wineries up there, but there'll never be anything great." The determination to prove his mentor wrong propelled Stuart into southern Oregon, where he found cellar work, learned from the state's wine pioneers and became involved in the Oregon Wine Growers Association.

A 10-year sojourn making wine in the Yakima Valley convinced him he belonged in Oregon, where he joined Erath Winery. "I learned a lot from Dick Erath," he said. "I learned a lot about viticulture. I learned about the Pinot Noir palate."

Maria Eileen Czamanske first came to Oregon to attend the International Pinot Noir Celebration in 1990, after representing the state's wines in Chicago. Soon thereafter, she moved to Portland, eventually married Rob and became a driving force in R. Stuart's hospitality efforts as well as in a number of industry and charitable associations in McMinnville. Her community-minded grace and generosity were legendary until her death in 2021.

"Her whole thing was bringing people together and pairing food and wine. That was something we did together," Stuart recalls.

ENTREPRENEURS ARRIVE

By opening Maryhill Winery, Craig and Vicki Leuthold built on the rich history of Goldendale in the Columbia River Gorge. Sharing its name and hilltop location with the nearby Maryhill Museum of Art, the winery, with its large tasting room and grounds, overlooks a vineyard farmed by the Gunkel family for three generations.

While working in the plastics industry in the 1980s, Craig recalls spying a copy of Wine Spectator on a customer's desk. The ensuing conversation was the spark that ignited his passion for wine, leading him to join tasting groups and meet leaders in the Washington wine industry. Vicki's more than 20 years in the Northwest's coffee industry during a period of phenomenal growth was a fitting preamble to wine. "It was very exciting to be part of that, just like the early days of wine in the Northwest," she recalls.

From the start, Craig and Vicki envisioned Maryhill as a destination winery. It sits at the edge of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, requiring a drive from any of the surrounding population centers. Over the years, live music and expanded food offerings added to a large portfolio of acclaimed wines sourced from 23 vineyards across Washington, making it a place to spend the day. Three satellite tasting rooms now bring the Maryhill experience to Kendall Yards in Spokane, the Waterfront in Vancouver and Woodinville's Hollywood Schoolhouse. Each location offers food pairings and a schedule of live music.

HOSPITALITY RULES

R. Stuart & Co. echoes Maryhill's move toward a more accessible tasting experience. Fueled by Maria's passion for hosting, they opened one of downtown McMinnville's first wine bars in 2006, an innovative move at the time that remains open today. "We wanted to feel like it's your place… kind of like the 'Cheers' mentality," Stuart said. "It's not glitzy, but it's warm and comfortable."

Six Peaks’ latest hospitality feature is a tasting room that opened last month, complementing the family home and winery, which previously served as the tasting space. The brand's name pays tribute to the five peaks visible from the property, plus the one where the facility is located. "People would come here and say, 'there's no place like this,'" Lynn recalls. "So we thought, alright, let's see what we can do."

DAY BY DAY

Immersed in working each day, 25 years have snuck up on these busy people. "I wasn't ever thinking: will I make it for 25 years?" said Stuart, echoing similar sentiments from the others.

All spoke of the rise and fall of distributors over the years and the balance between wholesale and direct-to-consumer sales. But beyond surviving industry-wide headwinds over two and a half decades, each winery has its own company-specific anecdotes.

Maryhill operated a large live-music amphitheater on the property from 2003 to 2018, presenting national acts at a time when there were few such venues in the region. Stories abound about the joys and frustrations of hosting artistic temperaments. "That could be our second book: the concert series alone," quipped Vicki.

Six Peaks was originally called J. Albin Winery but rebranded after receiving a threatening cease-and-desist letter from a similarly named winery in California. Albin was advised that he could win a court battle, but that it would be costly. Instead, he said, "We changed the name to Six Peaks to avoid all that nonsense."

Rob Stuart remembers holding their first wine club dinner: a crab feed in the winery in February. "I think it was 17 degrees," he recalled, "and we had 66 people here, so we told them to bring a warm coat. And they did." The annual event grew in popularity until the last one, hosted by Maria, drew 180 people.

THE PAST IS PROLOGUE

Successfully navigating past challenges positions these wineries to chart a positive course through the industry's current malaise. No one knows what the next 25 years will bring, but their strong track records and capable teams point to a bright future.

"We're kind of turning on the marketing machine a little bit, inviting new people to come visit us, embracing new technologies like doing blogs and YouTube and also digital advertising things that really weren't around 10 years ago," Craig Leuthold said, hoping "to embrace younger demographics, to find out exactly what they're looking for and why."

Reflecting on Oregon’s mix of multigenerational brands and the changes brought by industry newcomers, Stuart said, "I hope we don't forget why we are here and how we got here. We celebrate the collectiveness of our industry, the sharing of things. I want the sense of that to continue."