Eric Hamacher never
intended to enter the winemaking business;
his plan was to study medicine. But a discussion
with a close family friend, a doctor, caused
him to question his career choice. As he considered
switching his path, many family friends in
the wine industry offered their input. One
invited Eric to Sonoma to work the harvest.
Eric found the labor
fun and enjoyed how everyone worked toward
a common goal. The family-oriented lifestyle
attracted him, as did the seriousness of the
curriculum at UC Davis. It quickly became apparent
that winemaking was an intellectual pursuit.
When he arrived in Oregon
in the 1990s, he held a degree in viticulture
and enology from UC Davis, and extensive winemaking
knowledge gained from working 15 vintages numerous
wineries around the world. Each winery, be
it Mondavi, Chalone, Etude or others helped
shape Eric's wine making style, almost all
nudged him further and further in his pursuit
of the perfect Pinot Noir and, ultimately,
to Oregon, Pinot's Promised Land.
These experiences provided
Eric with a new winery concept: the multiple
winery facility. Eric's theory was that larger
wineries with excess space could lease cellar
space and equipment to smaller wineries in
need of facilities benefiting both wineries.
After considerable time and effort on his part,
legislation was passed in Oregon and Eric's
concept of a multiple winery facility became
a reality.
What is important to
Eric today is making the best wines he can
while having a sustainable life and consistently
doing things that are important to him. He
and wife Luisa live on a 40-acre farm near
Gaston in a historic farmhouse that has been
in the Ponzi family for nearly half a century.
There they raise their two children, Nico and
Mia.
The Hamacher family
From the winery:
Winemaker Eric Hamacher
founded Hamacher Wines with his wife Luisa
Ponzi in 1995. Their objective was simple:
to handcraft high quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
wines. By letting this goal guide the winery,
it has, in less than a decade, become one of
the most respected and sought after of Oregon's
many great producers. The relatively small
winery, which produces only 2,000 cases a year,
is featured in nearly a dozen markets in the
U.S. and exported around the world.
Hamacher Wines produces small quantities of
both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In each vintage
the goal is to craft wines of elegance, supple
texture and balance. Hamacher makes his wines
traditionally, with minimal intervention and
handling, using wild yeast and bacteria, aging
for almost a year and a half in barrel before
racking by gas pressure, and blending and bottling
by gravity.
" My attempt is to sculpt consistently complete
wines through close management of the vineyards
and careful blending at the winery. I believe the
best wines are still made by resisting the temptation
to do something. Good grapes with gentle and minimal
handling describes my winemaking philosophy."
View of the Carlton
Winemakers Studio through piles of "must",
the solid grape seeds and skins left after
crushing.
A typical late fall misty rainy day in
the Willamette Valley
The "pad" at
Carlton Winemakers Studio, where grapes are
unloaded, sorted,
and moved via gravity feed into the winery
for processing.
Finished practically as the grapes arrived
at the dock,
the winemakers report that it performed
well during its first (2002) harvest.
View of Carlton
Winemakers Studio from Cuneo Cellars
on a misty rainy November day in 2002.
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