Overview:  For years we, Earl and Hilda Jones, have pursued our passion for wines made from Spain’s
noble Tempranillo grape. Our goal has always been to produce fine wine from that grape in
America. Our first objective was to identify an area in America where we could plant and
successfully grow the Tempranillo grape. The question: should we seek a Spanish-like ‘soil’
or a Spanish-like ‘climate’. We decided climate was the most important factor and the
“Abacela Idea” was to search for an American region with a similar climate to that of the
finest Tempranillo growing areas in Spain. The "optimal" climate had to be just hot enough
to ripen the fruit but not so hot, especially during ripening, to over-ripen or "cook out" the
essence of the grape. This climate should also provide dry summers and cool, but not cold
winters. Searches through tomes of books, climate records, and maps led to the West
Coast. The search ended in Southern Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, 11 miles southwest of
Roseburg. Here, we selected a site on south sloping hillsides that is sunny and hot during
the day only to be cooled at night by Pacific Ocean breezes. The “Abacela idea” has
subsequently grown into a 58-acre vineyard and winery. We named our efforts Abacela
from an ancient Iberian word meaning ‘to plant a grape vine’ to signify the first
Tempranillo planting in the Pacific Northwest.