In the heart of Willamette Valley wine country, a petite vineyard is making a statement. Just west of Newberg, L’Angolo Estate first opened its doors to the public last November, offering pours of its estate-grown pinot noir on a 24-acre vineyard in the north Dundee Hills. Over Memorial Day weekend, the young winery further consolidated its position as a key wine tour stop with a sleek new tasting room bathed in light and redolent of Oregon timber.

Lever Architecture designed the airy new tasting room, which winemaker/owner Chase Renton describes as “a perfect expression of the soil and the wine.” When designing the tasting room, Renton says the shared goal was to replicate the wine. “We aimed for simplicity and for natural beauty. Just like our wine, we wanted the tasting room to be elegant without being too grandiose.”

L’Angolo Estate’s tasting room is also the latest example of Pacific Northwest architecture’s rediscovery of the region’s timber industry: Lever tapped a mill in Drain, Oregon for upgraded versions of mass-produced beams fashioned from southern Oregon trees.

L'Angolo specializes in estate-grown Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Sangiovese. "We make and grow everything ourselves and we don’t buy or sell any fruit,” Renton says. The new tasting room is open Fridays to Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment.

“It’s important [for us] to know the people who walk through our doors,” says Renton, “meaning those who visit will get the best hospitality.”