A Grower Of Wine

Tony Soter helped set the course for Napa Cabernet before Championing Pinot Noir in California and ultimately Oregon

- By Tim Fish

The clouds over Mineral Springs Ranch are threads of white on blue as Tony Soter walks between rows of Pinot Noir vines.

It's late summer in Oregon and the fruit hangs heavy as he moves among the vines, pulling off stray leaves to open the canopy and manicuring grape bunches as he goes. He does this without thinking, all the while continuing to discuss clones, soils and ground cover on a level worthy of a Ted Talk.

Soter is in his element in the vineyard: It is where he has felt most at home across his 40-plus-year career as a winemaker. Every vineyard, he likes to say, has a voice, something true and distinctive: You just have to listen.

Winemaker, farmer, mentor—Soter is all those things. One of the most respected winemakers in the business, he helped lay the groundwork for modern Napa Valley Cabernet in the 1980s, working with wineries such as Chappellet, Shafer, Spottswoode and Dalla Valle, only to walk away from it all in 2006 to move to his native Oregon to make Pinot Noir in Willamette Valley.

Yet his broad influence is unknown to many consumers. “Tony is not the sort of person who courts the limelight,” is how Beth Novak Milliken, president and CEO of Spottswoode, describes Soter. Among his fellow winemakers, however, his contributions are both known and respected, and his influence continues. Doug Shafer, president of Shafer Vineyards, says only half-jokingly, “I want to be Tony Soter when I grow up.”

As he turns 70, Soter is both looking to the future and reflecting on his considerable legacy. “I should be retiring,” he says, “but it’s really not in my DNA.”