A Long Story, Still Being Told
Oregon's Originals
Still Pioneering
In 1969, Dick Ponzi left a career designing rides for Disneyland and moved his family to an unknown valley in Oregon — because he believed Oregon could make cool climate wines that could compete with the world’s best. He taught himself viticulture. He fabricated his own equipment. He started Oregon's first craft brewery on the side.
Dick and Nancy's daughter Luisa went to Beaune and became the first non-French woman to earn the Certificate Brevet Professionnel D'Oenologie et Viticulture. She came home, became Ponzi's second-ever winemaker in 1993, and defined what Oregon Chardonnay could be.
In 2021, Champagne Bollinger — 200 years of uncompromising quality — chose Ponzi as their first property outside France. They didn't acquire us. They recognized us. That recognition brought two centuries of knowledge, resources, and conviction about what world-class wine requires — applied directly to Laurelwood.
In 2024, Luisa passed the title of winemaker to Max Bruening — the first person outside the family to hold that role in our history. She didn't hand him a job. She handed him a standard.
There are over 1,000 wineries in the Willamette Valley now. We started something. And the vines Dick planted in 1970 are still producing — which tells you something about the land, and something about what happens when you bet everything on what you believe.