Lynn Penner-Ash and her family

Wines & Vines, July, 1999 by Larry Walker

Lynn Penner-Ash's career path made a sharp turn her senior year at the University of California at Davis when a friend helped her get a summer job at Domaine Chandon in Napa Valley. Penner-Ash, now the winemaker, president and chief operating officer at Rex Hill Winery in Oregon was studying botany at the time, a decision she made when she did a summer internship at the Smithsonian Institute.

"Up until that time, I had been going home in the East and working every summer as a clerk-typist for the Federal Aviation Agency," Penner-Ash said.

At Chandon, she quickly discovered that working at a winery was a lot more interesting than being a typist. She met the late Gino Zepponi at Chandon and he recognized her potential in the wine business. "He said I should work a complete harvest cycle and helped me get a job at Chateau St. Jean and I was hooked," Penner-Ash recalled.

She said she was fascinated by the entire process of winemaking - harvest, fermentation, aging and bottling. She said it was an experience which allowed both her creative, intuitive and emotional sides to complement her more rational side, as well as her love for science. Having already changed her major from botany to viticulture, she changed a final time to enology, following her pre-graduation experience at St. Jean.

After graduation Penner-Ash worked at Stag's Leap Wine Cellars for four years as an enologist, before moving to Oregon.

Why Oregon?

"I liked the wide open feeling of it," Penner-Ash said. "Also, after several interviews in Napa, I realized that nobody in Napa really wanted to hire a young winemaker."

Asked if the fact that she was a young female winemaker might have been a factor at the time (this was over a decade ago) Penner-Ash said that some of the questions she was asked may have been discriminatory. "But I was trying to get a job. I didn't want to make an issue of it. Also, now I can see some of the concerns about the physical aspects of the job. On the other hand, we do have forklifts for heavy loads."

She was also attracted to Oregon by the many challenges there. "There were a lot of issues to deal with. Clones and rootstocks in the vineyard, winemaking issues, too. This is my 12th vintage coming up and there hasn't been a single one that hasn't been a challenge," she said. "There also hasn't been an easy vintage, either. Each one has been different."

Penner-Ash came to Rex Hill in 1988 and has been president and coo since 1993. She has played a key role not only in setting the winemaking style but in guiding the growth of the winery from 6,000 cases in 1988 to 38,000 in 1997.

Currently, Rex Hill controls more than 225 acres of vineyards in the north Willamette Valley, including holdings in the Dundee Hills growing region. Penner-Ash keeps wine from different vineyard sites separate through most of the aging process, with blending coming only when the wines are about ready for bottling.

"Our focus at Rex Hill is definitely on the three Pinots - Pinot gris, Pinot blanc and Pinot noir," she said. "Pinot noir continues to be our most exciting wine. We are beginning to fine tune vineyard sites, trellising and spacing. There are still a lot of decisions to make." Penner-Ash added that she spends a lot of time in the vineyard, since her winemaking technique could be described as non-intervention.

"I really enjoy fruit-driven Pinot noir. I stay away from new oak never more than 35-40%. I use natural fermentation and let malolactic take its own pace. We don't rack until bottling. It's mostly a matter of just watching the wine and letting it do what it wants to do in the cellar," she said.

"I still find Pinot noir very challenging, but when Oregon Pinot noir is good, there is nothing to compare. I love California Pinot noir, too. But they are a very different style than Oregon. We don't make Burgundy and we don't make California wine. I think there is room for all styles," she added.

When she isn't making and tasting wine, Penner-Ash enjoys cycling, whitewater rafting, gardening, traveling and hot air ballooning. She crews with her husband, Ron, who is an elementary school teacher and balloonist. They live in the hills above Newberg with their four-year-old daughter, Taylor and their 7-year-old son, Cameron. There's also the fluffy gray cat, Gris, and a Golden retriever named Clicquot.

The name Clicquot has a special meaning for Penner-Ash and her husband, and it's no wonder she likes to start special evenings with a bottle of sparkling wine before moving on to her favorite, Pinot noir. "My husband proposed to me over a bottle of champagne," she said.

What champagne?

"Dom Perignon, 1973," she answered quickly.

Good thing she remembered.