Vineyard management firm to grow high-quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for Oregon clientele
McMinnville, Ore.—Atlas Vineyard Management is announcing the purchase of two properties totaling 683 acres in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where Atlas president Mike Cybulski and several staff members have been farming and developing vineyards since 2006.
“We’re committed to Oregon, and we’re committed to the relationships we have in Oregon,” says Barry Belli, co-founder and CEO of Atlas Vineyard Management. “We wanted to buy these properties to further these relationships and help local wineries grow their brands.”
Purchasing the two sites—Cooper Creek and Fern Creek—represents a new chapter for Atlas, which farms high-end vineyard sites in Oregon and California’s North Coast and Central Coast regions.
As vineyard development manager of Premier Pacific Vineyards in the 2000s, Cybulski developed 64.5 acres for the 300-acre Cooper Creek property, a former Christmas tree farm in Monmouth, Ore. “We got a really good start with soil amendments, the ripping, irrigation system and trellis system,” Cybulski says of the parcel. Atlas plans to build a reservoir on the property this year and has ordered vines for delivery in 2015.
The 383-acre Fern Creek site in Dallas, Ore., also is partially developed, having 58.42 acres under trellis and an irrigation system installed. “They both just need a reservoir and plants,” Cybulski says of the two sites, located about 7 miles apart. Atlas plans to plant 90 percent Pinot Noir and 10 percent Chardonnay at both locations, he added.
Cooper Creek and Fern Creek are planted with southeast-southwest orientation, and spacing that encourages high quality. The hillside vineyards’ locations in the Van Duzer Corridor provide good drainage and cool evening breezes.
The two sites have potential for an additional 240 acres under vine, according to Atlas, with grapes from the trellised locations hitting the market as soon as 2017, and any additional acres starting to bear fruit in 2019 and beyond.
By purchasing Cooper Creek and Fern Creek, Cybulski and Belli hope to ensure their Oregon clients will continue to have access to the high-quality fruit they’ve come to expect from Atlas-farmed properties.
“It’s a great opportunity to continue serving our Oregon customers who have come to rely on Atlas and the consistent high quality fruit we offer year after year” at sites such as the famed Willakia Vineyard, a 111-acre site owned by Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, Belli says. “We want to let our Oregon customers know that we are also interested in discussing long term grape contracts that will provide assurance of their long term fruit supply.”
Atlas is a licensed farm labor contractor in Oregon, where the team in McMinnville is taking on new farming commitments. “We offer more services than a typical farming company. We offer grape sales, water-rights services and in-house counsel,” Cybulski says. “We have contacts at a lot of different wineries that trust our farming. We help them grow grapes, get vineyard-designate wines and increase their bottom lines.”
Cybulski has been involved in Oregon grape growing for 25 years—starting through his work with Robert Mondavi Winery, which sent him to Oregon to learn about Pinot Noir, and later while serving as director of vineyard operations for Pine Ridge Winery, sister winery of Oregon’s Archery Summit.
Atlas Vineyard Management, Inc. manages over 1900 acres of world class vineyards properties in premier grape growing regions from Oregon’s Willamette Valley to California’s Napa-Sonoma regions to the Sta. Rita Hills of the Central Coast. AVM partners with the Country’s best wineries in providing a full range of services including—development, farming, management, grapes sales, financial services, and FLCS services. To learn more about AVM go to www.atlasvm.com or call (877) 232-9429.
