United States · Willamette Valley

White Walnut Estate

A 6.3-acre Dundee Hills vineyard where Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grow among fruiting walnut trees retained from the former orchard.

The producer

White Walnut Estate began as a neglected walnut orchard in Oregon’s Dundee Hills. Chris Mazepink bought the site in 2013; after he and his sons Archer and Charles cleared it by hand in 2014, the family planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir across 2015 and 2016. The vines grow in Jory soil beside walnut trees more than 70 years old that still bear fruit, under USDA Organic and Demeter Biodynamic certification.

Mazepink’s planting includes many selections and clones accumulated over 21 years, then meets a cellar using native yeasts, whole clusters, and wood, concrete, and terracotta vessels. The range moves from Dundee Hills wines to road, block, and amphora-named bottlings. South Blocks Pinot Noir brings dark cherry, blueberry, plum, savoury mineral notes, tannin, and a dry chocolate-toned finish; the Dundee Hills Chardonnay carries nectarine, honeysuckle, citrus peel, layered body, and persistent lemon-drop fruit.

Known for

Organic and biodynamic Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from a restored Dundee Hills walnut orchard.

Notable facts

The story

Clearing the orchard

Chris Mazepink bought the neglected former walnut orchard in 2013. By summer 2014, he and his sons, Archer and Charles, were clearing its bramble-covered ground by hand. The work came before the family planted the vineyard: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir went into the reclaimed site across 2015 and 2016. They did not erase every sign of the orchard. Some walnut trees remained in place as the rows took shape, and those trees are now more than 70 years old, still bearing fruit among the vines on the 6.3-acre Dundee Hills property.

From the atlas

White Walnut Estate

At A Glance

The Producer

White Walnut Estate is a family-run Dundee Hills vineyard built from a neglected walnut orchard. Chris Mazepink bought the property in 2013, then planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in 2015 and 2016. The resulting bottles come from a compact 6.3-acre site, where vines grow beside productive old walnut trees rather than on newly cleared ground.

Mazepink had previously led winemaking at Archery Summit, Shea Wine Cellars and Benton Lane. At White Walnut, that background meets a vineyard planted with many selections and clones gathered over 21 years, so Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are assembled from a deliberately varied field rather than a single uniform planting.

Place

White Walnut sits in Oregon’s Dundee Hills, and the regional name appears on bottles such as the 2023 Dundee Hills Chardonnay and 2022 Dundee Hills Pinot Noir. This is the wider geographic frame of the range; more narrowly named road and block wines then take the same two grapes into separate bottlings.

The estate’s organic and biodynamic certifications put farming at the centre of those labels. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the two varieties planted here, so the place is encountered through a white wine and a red wine rather than through a broad catalogue of grapes.

Soil And Site

Dundee Hills Jory soil is the named ground beneath White Walnut’s 6.3 planted acres. The site retains walnut trees that are more than 70 years old and still bear fruit, leaving the orchard’s physical structure in place as Chardonnay and Pinot Noir rows grow around it.

That combination matters most as a clear origin for the estate wines: a small planted vineyard, former orchard land, Jory soil and living trees all occupy the same site. It is a more particular setting than a generic Dundee Hills label alone can convey.

Story

Mazepink’s work at other Oregon wineries came before White Walnut, but the estate gave him a vineyard of his own to plant around many selections and clones collected over two decades. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were planted across 2015 and 2016, making the field blend part of the vineyard’s design from the beginning rather than a later cellar adjustment.

The range now carries that decision into bottle names at several scales: regional Dundee Hills wines, road-named wines, blocks and amphora bottlings. A six-acre estate can therefore produce more than one expression of each grape without pretending that every wine is the same parcel or the same vessel.

Vineyards And Cellar

The vineyard’s numerous Chardonnay and Pinot Noir selections are grown and harvested together in a polyculture approach. Their mixed material enters fermentation as a combined crop, which can bring several fruit, floral and structural voices into one wine instead of isolating clone by clone.

Mazepink also uses whole clusters, native yeasts and fermentation vessels made from wood, concrete and terracotta. Whole clusters can add stem-derived spice and tannin to Pinot Noir; native yeast fermentations can unfold at their own pace; and the different vessels provide alternatives to a single oak-led texture. The practical result is a cellar built to preserve varied fruit and texture from the field.

Wines

White Walnut’s range moves from Dundee Hills wines toward road, vineyard or block names, with amphora bottlings adding a vessel-led branch. The 2023 Dundee Hills Chardonnay is a regional blend, while South Blocks Pinot Noir draws on all 12 distinct sections of the estate vineyard. Those labels separate a broader regional view from a red assembled across the property’s internal divisions.

The 2022 South Blocks Pinot Noir was bottled unfined and unfiltered, retaining its full set of estate components in bottle. Chardonnay appears in Dundee Hills, Worden Hill Road, North Blocks and vineyard-named forms; Pinot Noir appears as Dundee Hills, Worden Hill Road, South Blocks, Amphora and vineyard wines. The useful distinction is not a presumed ranking, but whether the label points to region, named location, block or fermentation vessel.

In The Glass

South Blocks Pinot Noir begins with salted blueberry, sassafras and dark cherry. On the palate, plum juice and red currant carry the fruit into a savoury line, while salted mineral character lengthens the finish. Dark chocolate and bittersweet chocolate linger after the fruit, giving the 2022 a dark, dry finish with more than simple berry sweetness.

That profile follows the wine’s construction: all 12 estate sections are combined, and the wine is bottled unfined and unfiltered. The result is Pinot Noir with fruit, savoury detail, tannin and a persistent finish rather than a narrowly framed single-fruit expression.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the 2023 Dundee Hills Chardonnay. It is the regional Chardonnay in the range, and its aromas move from nectarine, honeysuckle and bee pollen toward citrus peel. The palate has layered richness, while lemon-drop notes remain through the persistent finish. It puts Chardonnay, the Dundee Hills appellation and White Walnut’s unfined, unfiltered approach into one bottle without requiring a block or vessel comparison first.

Anecdote

In summer 2014, Chris Mazepink and his sons Archer and Charles faced a neglected, bramble-covered walnut orchard they had bought the year before. They cleared the property by hand. The work came before a vine was planted, and the family kept some of the orchard’s old walnut trees rather than removing every trace of its former use. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir went into the ground across 2015 and 2016; the surviving trees are now more than 70 years old, still bear fruit, and stand among the vines.

Final Word

White Walnut’s bottles begin with two familiar grapes, but their setting is unusually easy to picture: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in Jory soil, on 6.3 acres reclaimed from an orchard, with old walnut trees still producing fruit beside the rows.

Sources

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