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It means so much to me that you took the time to subscribe to this wine club and, more importantly, chose to spend your hard earned money with us. This month's club release is focused on the wines of Willamette Valley's Liska Wines. The Willamette Valley, named for the Willamette River running through it, is Oregon’s most famous wine region and oldest ava, established in 1983. Starting just north of Portland, sandwiched between the Cascade Range to the east and Coastal Range to the west, the region spans 150 miles north to south and 60 miles at its widest point. However, the planted area is less than 0.1% and is further divided among 11 sub-AVAs. Most specify an elevation of at least 200 ft to distinguish themselves from the more fertile valley floor. Pinot Noir dominates plantings in all Willamette AVAs, with Pinot Gris and Chardonnay in attendance.

But there's more than meets the eye to this seemingly staid region. Old guard producers, such as The Eyrie Vineyards, have always experimented, planting grape varieties outside of the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for which the Willamette has become known—the Willamette Valley is still a young wine region on the world scale, after all. Meanwhile, upstart producers, seeking to carve a lane for themselves, have also championed varieties outside of famous Burgundian duo. One such producer is the duo of Chris Butler and Draga Zheleva, who founded Liska Wines with the 2021 vintage. They are the real deal: they met in the famed UC Davis Viticulture & Enology master's program, made wine in Germany’s Mosel region, Margaret River, Australia, and Oregon, with one currently pursuing a PhD in Biological & Ecological Engineering, and the other currently Associate Winemaker at the famed Cristom Vineyards. These were among the most exciting wines I tasted last year. I am ecstatic to be able to feature them for club members.

The Gist on the Wines

Liska Wines, Riesling, Royer Vineyard, Eola-Amity Hills, Willamette Valley (2024)

Chris and Draga are huge fans of serious dry German Riesling. Eola-Amity’s Royer Vineyard, with its high altitude, rocky volcanic soils and direct exposure to the coastal winds of the Van Duzer Corridor, is one of the best Riesling sites in Oregon. Its wines consistently have stone-fruit aromatics and concentrated acidity all knit into a fabric of salinity. Native ferments in barrel without malo and aged on its fine lees in neutral oak hogsheads and puncheons for ~10 months. It has refined aromas of pineapple, peach, lemongrass, bread dough and petrichor. The light-bodied palate pairs ripe fruit with linear acidity and has a long, layered finish. ~112 cases were made. 

Liska Wines, Syrah, Symbion Vineyard, Eola-Amity Hills, Willamette Valley (2023)

Syrah is exceedingly rare in the Willamette for good reason: it doesn’t always ripen. When it does, it’s a special wine with flavors of black pepper, brined olives, cranberries and smoked meat—a feast for the senses. Cristom’s founding winemaker Steve Doerner planted Symbion Vineyard in 2001 in volcanic soils at 400-500 feet on an east-facing slope in the Eola-Amity Hills. This comes from a half-acre of Syrah, made with native ferments, a proportion of whole cluster according to the vintage, and aged on its fine lees for ~18 months in neutral barrels. Bottled without fining or filtration. The Symbion has pure aromas of blackberry, blueberry and redcurrant with nuances of peppercorn, woodsmoke, olive and charcuterie. The medium-bodied palate offers an ideal balance of dark fruit and savory character. It’s framed by chalky tannins and fresh acidity and has a long, elegant finish. ~122 cases were made. 

The Details on Liska Wines

Chris Butler and Bulgaria’s Draga Zheleva met at UC Davis, where they were in the same viticulture & enology masters program.  Chris got the wine bug through home brewing in California’s bay area, which led him down a rabbit hole of science studies and a double major in food science and microbiology at Oregon State.  After harvests in Washington and New Zealand, he got into UC Davis.  Draga grew up surrounded by home winemaking in Bulgaria and came to the US on a student visa, where she studied marine biology in Juneau, Alaska.  Her real love was agriculture, however, and a professor in Juneau encouraged her to apply to Davis.  It was a propitious decision.

Following the masters program, they worked a summer at the lower Mosel’s Heymann-Lowenstein winery, which proved to be foundational in terms not just of a style of wine that spoke to them— acid driven and lower alcohol—but of the role of wine in culture, society and family.

After Germany, they worked at wineries in western Australia before deciding that Oregon and its cooler climate was where they wanted to put down roots.  Once there, they split up, with Chris taking a harvest job with Chehalem Winery in the north while Draga took one at Wooldridge Winery in the Applegate Valley in the south to see which area would best suit the style of wine they wanted to make.  The Willamette Valley won, and they moved to McMinnville.

Just before the 2019 harvest, Chris joined the winemaking team at Cristom, headed up by Dan Estrin, who himself had only started a month earlier after a 7-year stint at Littorai Wines.  The two men were highly conscious of the fact that Cristom was a successful winery with an established style, and from 2019 onward they have worked together to fine tune that style and its success.  In 2024, Chris became Associate Winemaker. 

It was during Lockdown that Draga and Chris conceived of Liska, a Bulgarian term of endearment for a female fox and the name of their rescue German Shepherd.  Cristom offered its facilities, and with the ’21 vintage Liska took flight: 450 cases of Riesling, Gruner, Gewurtz, Gamay and Syrah.  Originally, they had only contracted for Riesling and Gamay, and when in July the other varieties unexpectedly became available, they gulped and said yes, which terrified Chris and further enlivened Draga.  She was pregnant at the time, and it was the busiest harvest either of them has ever worked.

These days they work with just over half a dozen vineyard sources, mostly in the Eola-Amity AVA.  All are dry-farmed and most are no-till and farmed organically.  Pick dates are chosen with an eye for acid-driven wines with lower ABVs, while cellar practices are very much hands off and dictated by good science.

By vintage 2024, production reached just over 1,000 cases, which is about as big as Chris and Draga want Liska to be for the near term.  The labels are Draga’s—they are based on her linocuts, or relief prints carved out of linoleum blocks, and each has a relationship to its wine.