TONY SOTER founded Etude Wines in 1982 and its name, "study," describes his reverence for the ongoing learning process that is winegrowing. Early in his career, Soter realized that there were innumerable variables that guided a wine towards excellence. He learned to distinguish between winemaking techniques fundamental to quality, and those that imparted a winemaker's signature. He sought to understand the voice of each individual vineyard, to maximize its expression in the glass. 

In the mid-1980s, Soter began working as a consulting winemaker in the Napa Valley, assisting luminaries such as Araujo, Niebaum-Coppola, Shafer, Spottswoode, Viader and Dalle Valle. After years of mentoring and encouraging some of Napa Valley's most respected growers and winemakers, he ended his consulting roles to focus exclusively on Soter Vineyards and his family.

Apart from being a culmination, Soter Vineyards is also a beginning. Soter Vineyards is a family enterprise; with the eventual help of their children, Oregon natives Tony and Michelle Soter hope to establish a legacy of august, estate-bottled wines, in the fashion of the great family domaines of Burgundy. The wines will consistently express this exotic flare, be sappy and fruit-driven, with lovely acid balance.