When Jared Etzel was a kid, his dad often drove the family’s VW microbus down Worden Hill Road in Willamette Valley, and he drove it fast. A hilly, zigzag of a road, it was still gravel in the late 1980s, and sitting in the back of the van, Etzel and his two younger brothers loved the wild ride. “It was like being on a rodeo horse,” Etzel recalls.
Thirty-five years later, when Etzel was planting a vineyard on Worden Hill for a new winery, he racked his brain for a name for the project. Then it hit him: Rodeo Hills. Perfect.
Etzel, as lovers of Oregon Pinot Noir know, is the son of Mike Etzel, the founding winemaker of Beaux Frères. He was four when the family moved to the former hog ranch that has been home to Beaux Frères since 1987, and he grew up working the vineyards and in the cellar.
Like his brother Mike D., Jared followed dad into the wine business. But while Mike D. stayed with Beaux Frères and is now CEO, Jared set out on his own. “I knew I could not work at Beaux Frères. My dad and I are too similar. We would have butted heads constantly,” he told Wine Spectator in 2020.
After working harvest internships at Clos Erasmus and Viña El Pisón in Spain, Etzel earned his viticulture and enology degree at Oregon State University and went on to work at Kapcsàndy and Fisher in California. In 2012, he joined with Marc-André Roy, son of Beaux Frères partner Robert Roy, to start Domaine Roy & Fils. The wines were a critical success but ultimately Etzel and Roy sold the winery to Italian wine company Marchesi Frescobaldi in 2023.
By that time, Etzel was already developing Rodeo Hills, after purchasing the property in 2016. The project is a family collaboration with his wife, Erica, and brother-in-law Eugene Labunsky, a real estate developer in the Pacific Northwest.
The same year, Etzel, with the help of brother Mike D., planted the newly acquired land with the seven-acre Pear Vineyard, which sits at an elevation of 910 feet on a southeast-facing ridge along Worden Hill. They took cuttings from the best vines at Beaux Frères and planted them as a field blend. “It’s completely intermixed,” Etzel says, “so the blend of clones will always be the same year to year, so it’s showing the vintage, not the winemaking selection.”
The vineyard has six acres of Pinot Noir and one of Chardonnay and is planted at a high density, with about 2,233 vines per acre. The clonal selection for the Pinot includes Pommard, Wädenswil, Swan and 667, 115 and 943. The Chardonnay clones include Draper, Wente and a Corton Charlemagne. The soil is shallow, with an iron-rich layer set on compressed sandstone.
The first vintage of Rodeo Hills was 2021, and Etzel is keeping production small, with about 800 to 900 cases annually. Depending on the vintage, he will release two to four different bottlings every year. Rodeo Hills Hard Press Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—both made in a lighter and more accessible style—will be produced every year, while the regular Rodeo Hills bottlings of Chardonnay and Pinot are akin to reserve wines and will be released only from the best vintages.
Last year, I rated the 2021 Chardonnay Dundee Hills Pear Vineyard ($184) at 93 points on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale, praising its verve and elegant complexity. The 2022 Rodeo Hills and Rodeo Hills Hard Press Pinots were outstanding, both earning 94 points. I look forward to tasting the 2023s and 2024s, both excellent vintages in Willamette Valley.
Rodeo Hills doesn't have a winemaking facility on site. Instead, Etzel works out of nearby Late Sky winery, in which he’s a partner and where he also makes another of his brands, Coattails. (He also consults for other wineries, including Lenne, Jachter, Raindance and Tekstura.)
The Rodeo Hills wines are available via mailing list and at the tasting room, a sleekly modern bungalow that opened to visitors in fall 2023, offering a stunning view of Pear Vineyard and the surrounding tree-lined hillsides.
Follow Tim Fish on Instagram at @timfish_wine.
