Cherry Hill Winery is a 12,000 square foot winery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. We produce about 2,000 cases of estate-grown Pinot Noir each year from our 90-acre Cherry Hill vineyard as well as a Blanc de Pinot Noir.

Our wines are available in select retailers and restaurants, through this website, and in our own Cherry Hill tasting room. Give us a call and our staff will be happy to assist you in finding Cherry Hill wines in your area. From harvest to bottling, it all takes place here amid the gentle greenery and sweeping views of our Eola Hills estate. Come visit our tasting room and see why we’re more than just a bottle of wine.

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Proprietors Mike and Jan Sweeney have spent many years and much effort seeking outstanding Pinot Noirs. They have pursued the holy grail of Pinot Noir in France, California, New Zealand and Oregon.

In 1998, after several visits to the Willamette Valley of Oregon, they purchased the undeveloped 150-acre vineyard that is now the home of Cherry Hill Winery and Vineyard.

Over the past several years the Sweeneys have toiled to create a world-class winery and vineyard in the Amity/Eola Hills of the Willamette Valley of Oregon. The view of the vineyards, coastal range, and sunsets are as romantic as the wines we produce.

After 16 years as an aircraft mechanic, Winemaker Ken Cook realized a career change was in order. Ken’s appreciation for wine brought him and his wife, Kerrie, all the way from Anchorage, Alaska to Oregon’s Willamette Valley to begin a new life in the wine industry.

Ken began his new career with Chemeketa Community College Northwest Viticulture Center Program. He holds a degree in both winemaking and vineyard management and joined the team at Cherry Hill Winery in 2005. He brought his knowledge of cutting edge techniques and practices to Cherry Hill. Ken’s goal at Cherry Hill is to sustainably grow ripe and balanced fruit to produce pinot noir that represents the terroir of Cherry Hill vineyard in a minimal intervention wine production style.

Cherry Hill Winery lies directly atop the 45th parallel — halfway between the equator and the North Pole, at the same Pinot-friendly latitude as Burgundy.

This is a region in bloom: we are neighbors with many other noted Eola-Amity Hills vineyards and wineries.  Cherry Hill is a 150-acre estate, with 90 of those acres planted to pommard and dijon clones of pinot noir.

All pruning, thinning, and leaf pulling is done by hand; so is the harvesting itself, a rarity in these days of increasing automation.

Our vineyard lies on south and southwest slopes at elevations from 250-450 feet, which offers the maximum degree days for fruit ripening.  Vines include Dijon (115, 777,113) and Pommard clones set on phylloxera-resistant rootstock.

The vineyard’s 100,000 vines are planted with 6’ x 8’ spacing using a vertical trellising system.  Irrigation comes from our seven-acre spring-fed reservoir.  We crop to 2 tons per acre and harvest our fruit at precisely 23 brix.

The Eola-Amity Hills are located about an hour south of Portland, near Oregon’s state capital of Salem, on the cusp of the Coastal Range that separates the Willamette Valley from the Pacific Ocean. The moderating influence of the Van Duzer corridor through the coastal range, combined with the bowl-like shape of our site, provides ideal growing conditions for Pinot Noir.

Cherry Hill vineyard was planted in 1998 after extensive soil analysis revealed that the native Jory soils were beautifully suited to pinot noir.  Jory subsoils present in the vineyard include nekia, hazelair, chehulpum, steiwer and bellpine.

The cool climate and rich soil combine to create Pinot Noir fruit of deep color, complex aromas, and distinctively concentrated flavors.  We’re blessed to have a variety of soils, facings and elevations to work with, and learning to ‘paint’ with this varied palette is one of our most exciting prospects for the future.  As Mike Sweeney likes to say, “God was good to Cherry Hill.”

The area has been known as Cherry Hill as far back as the local lore runs in this young corner of America. Wild cherries have always grown here, and much of our 150 acres were planted in sweet Royal Anne cherries in the 1960s.

Even earlier the hill was planted to prune trees, which produced succulent fruit. Indeed, the entire Willamette Valley is known for wonderful soil and a long, moderate growing season that is just right for agriculture of all kinds.

In the early 1990’s this property was purchased by the legendary William Hill, one of the early visionaries of the Napa Valley. Hill’s special facility with hillside sites is famous: he developed Atlas Peak, Diamond Mountain Ranch, Mount Veeder and other distinctive appellations in the Napa region.

That same ‘nose for slopes’ led him to the Eola Hills. The undeveloped rural district had all the right ingredients for world-class pinot noir: the right cool climate, southwestern slopes, elevations between 250-500 feet, and the essential rich, well-drained Jory soils. (In fact, Jory soil is named for nearby Jory Hill in Oregon’s Marion County.)

William Hill acquired a large tract of land here in the Eola Hills early in the 1990s. He divided the property into three separate parcels, all of which are now planted to pinot noir and one of which was purchased in 1998 by our own Mike Sweeney. We at Cherry Hill continue to pursue our own Holy Grail: producing a perfect Pinot Noir from some of the best fruit acreage on the planet.