Carlton Winemakers Studio

The Carlton Winemakers Studio is an innovative, "green" cooperative winemaking facility that promises to be an archetype for Oregon's wine industry, and the first of its kind built from the ground up in the nation. The 15,000-square-foot gravity flow winery, located on two acres in Carlton, Oregon, opened in August, in time for the 2002 harvest.

The Carlton Winemakers Studio is a partnership between Eric Hamacher his wife, Luisa Ponzi of Ponzi Vineyards, and Ned and Kirsten Lumpkin of Lumpkin Construction in Seattle and Lazy River Vineyard in Yamhill, OR. Their vision was to build a facility that is sustainable or "green," following the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System from the U.S. Green Building Council. This system employs accepted energy and environmental principles and strikes a balance between known effective practices and emerging concepts, utilizing recycled and reusable materials and efficient energy saving systems. In the end, the cost of running the facility will be much less expensive than a non-green building.

The Studio is also being specifically designed and built to house multiple, small, premium wine producers.

It is home to seven different wineries: Hamacher Wines, Andrew Rich Wines, Bryce Vineyard, Domaine Meriwether, Dominio, Penner-Ash Wine Cellars and Soter Vineyard. While each winery will operate totally independent of the other, with separate cellars and staff, all will benefit economically from top-of-the-line equipment designed to allow the winemakers to make their wines under the best possible conditions.

"The idea is to create a space where small wine producers can come together under one roof and have access to a state-of-the-art, gravity-driven, incredibly efficient facility, both for the production and promotion of ultra premium wines, without the extremely high up-front cost of building individual production facilities," says Hamacher.