About Us

Our Estate

Villa Catalana Cellars is a small east Willamette Valley winery located thirty minutes south of Portland, Oregon between Canby and Oregon City. We are a small winery that produces less than 500 cases a year. We have attempted to combine our love of gardening and food and wine by creating our estate. Our home (and tasting room) was inspired by San Clemente de Tahull, a 12th century romanesque church in Catalonia, Spain. Our tasting room is also a rare plant conservatory where many unusual tropical plants flourish.

We have developed our gardens from plants we raise in our nursery, Rare Plant Research, and from inspiration gained from visiting many gardens throughout the world. Our gardens have a decided Mediterranean feel in keeping with the architecture and the use of palms, Italian Cypress and olive trees as well as a host of other drought tolerant cacti, succulents and other exotics.

Fine gardening, like fine wine helps us slow down and enjoy the present and helps us appreciate where we are. We believe the best experience of food and wine is in the garden and our gardens have many places that are designed especially for dining. We host many dinners in our gardens in the summer and in the winter in the conservatory/tasting room. Our nursery is primarily a wholesale nursery and is open to the public only several weekends a year. However, we do have a few unusual plants that are available for purchase in the conservatory during tasting hours. If you you like to know when we hold special events, please sign up to receive our e-mail postings.

Our wine

We search for small, specialty vineyards throughout the Pacific Northwest that produce high quality grapes. Larger wineries often overlook these little vineyards because the quantity is so small. We find that often times these small vineyards produce amazing fruit due to the combination of soil, microclimate and the extra attention small vineyards often receive from their owners. We will produce wine from our own vineyard when it matures, but we will always seek out other small growers of fine fruit. Good wine is made from good grapes and the best wine is made from the best grapes. Since we explore other viticultural areas besides the Willamette Valley, we are able to produce other wines other than cool climate grapes like Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris.

So depending on your mood and palette you can taste our delicate Pinot Noir or our robust Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon.

The watercolor paintings on our wine labels are painted by artist Jerry Dickason and are vignettes of different views of our estate. We hope when you see our label, it reminds you of your visit and the wines we create.