Joe Swick grew up in Portland, Oregon, knowing that the land around him could produce something remarkable. It took a decade of harvests on three continents to prove it to himself before he came home and started making the wines he had always wanted to drink: fresh, honest, and as close to grapes as possible without tipping over into the abstract.
A Decade in Motion
Joe's education in wine began in 2003 when he worked his first harvest as a cellar assistant at an Oregon winery. What followed was an extraordinary decade of movement: roughly fifteen harvests in places as far apart as Tasmania, New Zealand, Portugal, and Italy, including time with the highly regarded natural winemaker Simon Busser in Cahors and Julien Labet in the Jura. By the time he returned to Oregon in 2013, he had a clear sense of what he wanted to make and how he wanted to farm.
The Pacific Northwest, Raw and Honest
Swick Wines is based in Newberg, in the Willamette Valley, but Joe sources fruit from both Oregon and Washington, always from certified organic or biodynamic growers in the cooler reaches of the Pacific Northwest. He has forged long-term relationships with growers who share his conviction that healthy soil is the beginning of everything. His stated creed is making wine that is as naked and raw as possible while remaining fun and delicious.
Minimal Intervention, Maximum Life
In the cellar, Joe uses native yeasts exclusively, ages in old barrels, and adds no conventional additives. He employs 100 percent whole-cluster inclusion for his red wines, produces skin-contact whites, and bottles pétillants naturels from whatever varieties inspire him in a given vintage. Sulfur is added on select wines only at bottling, and only when truly necessary. The range includes Pinot Noir, Chenin Blanc, Grenache, Verdelho, Melon de Bourgogne, and Touriga Nacional, reflecting the open curiosity that has defined his career from the beginning.
Lees, Laughs, and Community
Beyond the cellar, Joe Swick has become a beloved character in the American natural wine world, known as much for his humor and warmth as for the quality in the bottle. His sister Mariana turns the leftover wine lees into soaps and sugar scrubs. He named one wine Foryer Za as the ideal pizza pairing, and approaches his work with the unpretentious energy of someone who got into wine not as a career move but because he genuinely loves it.
