November 21st – BEND, Ore. – Willamette Valley Vineyards (NASDAQ: WVVIP), a leading producer of Oregon Pinot Noir, is opening its fourth Tasting Room & Restaurant in downtown Bend next month with the help of Bend resident Stan Turel, a founding stockholder and member of the winery’s board of directors.
Located at 916 NW Wall Street, the Bend Tasting Room & Restaurant will bring Oregon’s wine country experience to a community that loves all things craft. Guests will enjoy wine tastings, seasonal dishes rooted in the cuisine of the Pacific Northwest, wine club experiences and an in-house bottle shop.
The doors open on Wednesday, December 6. Information about reservations and hours can be found here on the winery’s website.
Turel and development director Carissa Cook began scouting locations in the Central Oregon community in 2020 after winery stockholders showed support for a Willamette outpost in Bend. They ultimately selected downtown Bend as the ideal setting due to its foot traffic and unique ambiance.
Securing the Bend location was no easy task. Their search led them to an occupied downtown space. Recognizing its prime location and potential, Turel and Cook reached out to the landlord and secured the site when the previous tenant ended their lease.
The process of finding and waiting for the location took two years. The development and construction of the property took another year.
“The wait and timing turned out to be perfect for opening during the holidays and as more wine enthusiasts from Bend are joining us as stockholders,” said Jim Bernau, Willamette Valley Vineyards’ founder and CEO.
The Bend location is Willamette’s fourth Tasting Room & Restaurant to open within a two-year timeframe. Willamette tasting room restaurants similar to the Bend operation are located in Lake Oswego and Happy Valley in Oregon and on the Columbia River waterfront in Vancouver, Washington.
A founding stockholder of Willamette since 1989, Turel is the President of Bend-based Columbia Pacific Tax Services. He is also a member of the Deschutes County Audit Committee.
Since their first meeting in 1986, Turel and Bernau have shared a parallel business marketing mindset. With similar entrepreneurial backgrounds from an early age, they seamlessly collaborate on the board of directors. Bernau saw Turel as the perfect ally for securing the Bend location, given their shared vision, collaboration and expertise.
“Stan was the perfect fit for his help with this project, thanks to his business experience and relationships in Bend,” Bernau said.
Bernau and Turel also share an early interest in winemaking.
Bernau’s early “winemaking” grew more from mischief when, at the age of 10, he liberated his mom’s frozen Concord grape juice and followed the description of fermentation he found in the family’s set of encyclopedias. In 1983, Jim bought and personally cleared the acreage of an old pioneer plum orchard in the Salem Hills, where he planted his first Pinot Noir vines. The vines make up what is now the Bernau Block at Willamette’s Estate Vineyard.
Turel’s early experiences with the wine industry started at 13 while spending summers on his grandfather’s farm in Washington state. He and his older sister helped plant grape rootstock on one of the early vineyard developments in the Yakima Valley.
An entrepreneur from a young age, Turel started an aircraft cleaning and waxing company when he was a teenager that served 15 airports in Oregon and Washington. In college, he started buying rental properties and currently has holdings in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
In 1986, Turel and Bernau worked together in Washington, D.C., to promote small business interests. At that time, Turel was a delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business and oversaw 14 offices as the president of Columbia Bookkeeping Services. He became an early stockholder in Willamette Valley Vineyards when Bernau shared his vision to grow the winery with the support of wine enthusiast investors.
“When I first met Jim, I knew his dream of creating a world-class winery had a good chance of happening,” Turel said. “His land was along Interstate 5 just south of Salem, giving it a lot of potential.”
Turel took an active role in the winery and has served on Willamette’s board of directors since 1994.
His involvement in the Bend community dates back to 1990 with a tax firm and Central Vision Wireless Cable TV and relocated to the area in 2007. He is also a private pilot and the author of “Plague of Justice: A True Crime Story” about a murder in Oregon.
Willamette Valley Vineyards
Founded in 1983 by CEO Jim Bernau with the dream of creating world-class Pinot Noir while serving as stewards of the land, Willamette Valley Vineyards has grown from a bold idea into one of the region’s leading wineries, earning the title “One of America’s Great Pinot Noir Producers” from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. In addition, all the vineyards have been certified sustainable through LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) and Salmon-Safe programs.
