Located about 30 minutes southwest of Portland, in Sherwood, Oregon, our 50-acre property is nestled within the Chehalem Mountains of Willamette Valley Wine Country. Hawks View’s sustainably-farmed vineyards produce exceptional Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay. With the breathtaking views and inviting tasting rooms, guests can gather, connect, and relax while enjoying world-class wine.
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In 2003, Jack Kemp and his family embarked on a dream to farm the land and grow grapes of exceptional quality. Then in 2007, under the name Hawks View Cellars, Jack combined a world-class winemaking facility with a warm, inviting place to bring friends and family together. Hawks View Cellars became one of the great loves of Jack’s life. After Jack’s passing, his wife, Willie, and son, A.J., carried on his vision.
In the Summer of 2017, Ponte Family Estate became the new owner of Hawks View Winery! With the experience of operating and co-owning two wineries and a hotel in Temecula, California, for 18 years, they are focused on maintaining Hawks View’s mission of crafting exceptional wine and providing an authentic guest experience.
We are currently pouring 16 different wines in our Tasting Rooms. We are always adding to our collection so be sure to follow our social media channels to stay updated on all of our new releases!
All wines made with our Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay are exclusively estate grown. For our big reds, we source our grapes from the most esteemed vineyards from the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley and the Rogue Valley, OR.
Our estate is incredibly well suited to grow the queen of grapes, Pinot Noir, and other cold-weather varieties such as Pinot Gris and Chardonnay. A warmer climate is required to grow heartier Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah, which is why we source Oregon-grown fruit from the Walla Walla Valley and Rogue Valley for our Hawk Attack and 100% Syrah.
We grow the following Pinot Noir clones: 115, Dijon, Wädensville, Pommard, 667, 777, Hanzell, and Coury. We also grow Chardonnay clones: Eden and 76.
Pinot Noir is extremely difficult to grow properly and requires an incredible amount of hand labor. Production yields are very low compared to Cabernet and Merlot, sometimes less than half. Suitable barrels are $1,000 each and the winemaking talent required to ferment, age, and blend the wine is also very pricey. We are confident that our wines are fairly priced given their quality.
We harvest mid-September, depending on the weather conditions and ripeness of the fruit.
All of our wines are fermented in steel, with white wines and rosés being bottled right away. Red wines are moved to oak barrels for aging. We also will make certain wines using concrete fermenters which add minerality and character to delicate reds like Pinot Noir.
We age our Pinots an average of 12 months in the barrel and 3-12 months in the bottle. Further barrel aging would not be beneficial for our target flavor profile. These wines age well in the bottle and we look forward to enjoying them in the years to come!
How old are they? We use mostly French oak barrels with a few American oak barrels thrown in for flavor. Most of our vintages are aged in 20% new barrels, with the remaining 80% in 2-5-year-old barrels.
After about 5 or so years when they stop contributing oak goodness to the wine, we occasionally sell our neutral barrels. Please inquire with the Winery Supervisor for availability
The Hawks View Vineyard sold grapes from 1991 to 2007, when the Tasting Room was opened. In the past, Hawks View has sourced grapes from Washington and coastal Central California. After the Ponte family purchased Hawks View in 2017, we focused exclusively on Oregon grapes. We sell any surplus grapes to high-end Pinot producers and we also purchase a small number of grapes from Oregon vineyards to produce bolder reds.
We do not distribute our wines. They are only available at the winery, online, and through our Wine Club
About half of our vines are “own rooted” and the other half are grafted on resistant rootstock. The own rooted vines may eventually succumb to root-borne diseases and will have to be replanted. The grafted vines will live longer. In the decades to come, we expect that our whole vineyard will be grafted onto resistant rootstock.
Yes! Some of our wines are occasionally bottled in Magnum size (capacity of 2 regular bottles) and we can also bottle up to Imperial size (capacity of 6 regular bottles) by special request. The larger bottle can be engraved and should be opened after several years of aging to celebrate a very special occasion!
We are a boutique winery, and we currently produce about 10,000 cases per season
In 2020, we revealed our Members Indoor Tasting Room, Members Rooftop Terrace, and expanded the Members Lawn. In 2022, we completed construction on a new storage building to age our wines for a longer period here at the winery
The Ponte Winery is a medium direct-to-consumer winery producing 25,000 cases per year, placing it amongst the smaller wineries in California. We grow grapes on 200 acres compared to 50 acres here at Hawks View. At Ponte, we own and operate a 100% estate and 100% Italian variety winery called Bottaia Winery.
We do not sell our California wines here at Hawks View, but you can buy them directly at pontewinery.com and bottaiawinery.com. Hawks View Wine Club Members enjoy reciprocal benefits including discounts and complimentary tastings. Email wineclub@hawksviewwinery.comfor more information.
The Kemp family, who bought the vineyards and built the winery, owned the house until it was sold to a local family. This home is no longer part of the Hawks View Winery property. Thank you for respecting their privacy!
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20210 SW Conzelmann Road
Sherwood, OR 97140
It all started in a salmon cannery. It was my first job. I was a high-school junior at the time and some stupid behavior on my part gave my parents the idea to “punish” me by sending me to work in rainy Astoria, Oregon. My prison for that summer was to be the Bumble Bee Salmon Cannery. Located on the waterfront at the end of a pier, it’s now a nice museum with a brewery, a coffee shop, and fancy condos nearby. The cannery motto was “Work is our Joy”, which worried me tremendously at the time. I now realize it sounds ominously similar to the message at the gates of German concentration camps.
Despite my misgivings, I spent a great three months there, working in the cold and slimy cannery from 7 am to 3 pm, but enjoying the long afternoons and weekends cruising up and down the coast with a bunch of older boys and girls. From the deserted beaches to the mountains, and all along the immense river, there was a vast expanse of stately evergreens. Having grown up in the tropics, the scenery was amazing to me. We’d drive east along the Columbia River (after crossing the bridge to the Washington side) and then cross back to Portland, the “big city.” Other times, we’d go fishing and we’d sneak a beer or two. Nothing too exotic but incredible to me at the time. And that was that — I fell in love with Oregon.
Before I knew it, my “sentence” was up and I got a telegram from my mother asking me to pack up and return home as school was about to start. I sold the jalopy I’d bought on arrival for the same $200 bucks I paid for it and said bye to the ladies at the gutting line thinking I’d never see any of them again. I did promise my new friends I would return someday. Sadly, like many teenage friendships, they were quickly forgotten as we all got on with our lives.
Fast forward 45 years. After graduating from college in the US and a busy business career including vineyard and winery work, I looked for an opportunity to buy something in Oregon, maybe a small ranch or a vacation cottage, so as to have an excuse to visit. But after running a winery in California for 14 years and a lifetime of drinking all sorts of wines, I experienced a fairly common phenomenon: As we get into our forties and fifties, many of us become devotees of Burgundian-style wines. My solution? Find a boutique winery in the Willamette Valley. I looked for two years, and finally, the “right one” came along: Hawks View Winery. Like Oregon, Hawks View was love at first sight.
I always laugh when I see the look on our friends’ faces when they first see Hawks View with Mt. Hood towering in the eastern horizon. Jaw-dropping amazement is an understatement. All of us still pinch ourselves when we drive the loop down to Amity (via Yamhill and Carlton) and then back to Sherwood, always stopping to taste our friends’ wines here and there, of course. Wow.
However, after talking to many of our new neighbors and guests I realize that many take for granted what we have in the Willamette Valley. Most of us are aware of wine country and that Oregon makes good Pinots, but that’s about it. Oregonians in the wine industry know and appreciate this of course, but they have spent their lives making wine and selling it in Dallas, Chicago, and New York. As a result, the average “cork dork” in Minneapolis knows more about the viticultural areas of the Willamette than a waiter in Portland. The French? They know. That’s why they are paying big bucks for wineries like Beaux Freres.
Part of our mission here is to share our growing understanding of the Chehalem Mountains appellation with our neighboring communities in Oregon, and with our wine club members in California. This hill of dirt, Laurelwood over volcanic basalt, was formed in the last twenty thousand years from the windblown silty loams of the Missoula flood. The wines grown here have bright red fruit, with an earthiness and nice acidity, making them perfect to go with high-end food. They are very different from Dundee or other areas to the south and west. But they are exactly what I was looking for. The Chehalem Mountains AVA makes wines as elegant as a string of pearls. No chin scratcher wines for us, no ma’am.
We are so lucky that Jack Kemp had the vision, the passion, and the financial means to buy this amazing vineyard and build this gorgeous winery. It was also lucky that his wife, Willie, and his son, AJ, continued his efforts after Jack’s untimely passing. It is now up to us, with your help, to continue the love story.
As seen above with his daughter Juliet, Claudio has a love of elegant wines and a passion for local community and sustainability. He is proud to curate the Hawks View Winery experience following the founding family’s vision. A graduate of UCLA business school, Claudio has served on the boards of Winegrowers of California, California Association of Wine Grape Growers, the Wine Institute and the Temecula Valley Winegrowers Association. He values authenticity from vineyard to glass and creating a welcoming, inviting guest experience. When asked about his favorite wine, he’s been heard to say “wines are like our children – we love them all equally, but not always at the same time.”
In his own words, Don is a “scientist by training and a passionate winemaker.” After graduating from Purdue University with a degree in Biochemistry and Food Science, he discovered his love of wine – specifically, Oregon’s phenomenal Pinot Noir. With more than 20 years of experience in the winemaking world, Don considers winemaking to be an art, each wine a culmination & an expression of the place in which it was grown.
Juliet started “working” in the wine industry when she was a mere 8 years old, greeting guests as they walked through the door at Ponte Winery. She graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a degree in Communication and Business and took on the position of Tasting Room Supervisor at one of our sister wineries, BOTTAIA Winery. A natural businesswoman with a strong aptitude for management, Juliet has moved into an operations role as the Winery Supervisor at Hawks View. In her free time, she enjoys exploring new breweries and restaurants in Portland, playing golf, and skiing Mt. Bachelor when she can get away.