Winemaker Jason Werner talks about his favorite projects and former life as a renegade DJ.
photo courtesy of Archetype12 Wines
When the weather becomes lovely and temperate, every day feels like a weekend day. To-do list be damned, my mind begins to meander among many possible outdoor diversions. During the week, I don’t often have the bandwidth to drive far out of town, so urban wineries are an ultimate go-to. For someone who lives and breathes local food and drink, it’s pretty much the best of all of my favorite things – I can relax, support a local business, indulge in incredible small-batch offerings and learn firsthand from the maker themselves – all sans a lengthy drive home. One of my favorites, Archetype12 Wines, is relatively new and under the radar, but is starting to get local and national nods for their artisanal wines and progressive French-and Spanish-inspired ciders and perries.
I met Archetype12’s founding winemaker, Jason Werner when he responded to a hand-scrawled ad I posted on the bulletin board at Steinbart’s seeking an aspiring winemaker who might want to use the hundreds of pounds of Niagara grapes the single vine in my backyard produces each year. This was a few years before Archetype12 had come to be, and before he opened his public tasting room. At that time, he was operating out of a home space, driving across the region to obtain fruit from various places for his then fledgling community-sourced libation project, Terroir Incognito.
Not only did Jason take my grapes, but he provided me with a substantial quantity of the light, fruity and surprisingly dry wine he made from it, as well as a sparkling variety of the same and a special chai cider he made by co-mingling and fermenting fruit from all of the various projects he had in process that season – an absolute delight. Emerging from the pandemic, Jason expanded Terroir Incognito and opened the Archetype12 Winery and Tasting room in the Brooklyn neighborhood in lower southeast Portland where he crafts small batches of wine based on the ethos and personalities of the twelve classic archetypes. I recently popped in for a chat, to taste some of Jason’s new and soon-to-be-released wines and libations and to play three questions.
photos courtesy of Archetype12 Wines
It’s always fun to connect with Jason, and especially in his natural (winemaker’s) habitat. He moves quickly among the barrels and bottles with a Bowie-like grace, describing with excitement the different projects and releases he is working on (spoiler alert – there are many). And because he plans to expand and move operations to rural Hillsboro this summer, it’s a chance to visit him while he’s still local, not to mention a bit more of a secret than he’ll be once the wine country crowds discover him. While we conversed and sipped delicious things – among them a buttery and refined yet-to-be released 2023 Chardonnay as well as a dark, sultry and beautifully composed Syrah aptly named ‘The Sage’, and an exquisite and earthy Norwegian-style bilberry cider which I hesitate to mention due to fact that I wish to acquire more of its quickly dwindling quantity – I asked him about what he’s got in the works, what he’s excited about and to share something about himself that few people know.
Q: You always have your hands in so many delicious things! Any specific projects you are particularly excited about?
A: There are two! First, I’m working on an Imperial Wine Sap cider using gorgeous crab apples from Two Trees at Red Hat Orchards. These are late ripening apples and have accumulated a significant amount of sugar and are being co-fermented with agave nectar, resulting in rich, mezcal notes and a relatively high alcohol content of 14%.
The second project is a Cider I’m calling Miss Mary Mac based on the famous nursery rhyme that goes “Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack all dressed in black, black, black…” where ‘Mac’’ refers to its composition of wild heritage and Macintosh apples. It’s ‘dressed in black’ due to the use of coconut charcoal filtration which gives it its black color, so that’s pretty unique. I produced and bottled 60 gallons of it, and just released it this week. (A black cider named after an old-timey nursery rhyme?!! That’s so goth!)
So Goth! – photo courtesy of Archetype12 Wine
Q: Outside of the Archetype12 Winery Tasting Room, where can people meet you and taste your wines and libations?
A: I’ll be at the Indie Wine Mixer Memorial Day weekend at the McMinnville Bindery. It’s one of the only local wine events of its kind featuring over thirty of Oregon’s truly independent craft winemakers. I’ll be there pouring wines and probably a few different ciders on Sunday, May 26th, but you should definitely go on both days!
photo courtesy of Indie Wine Mixer 2024
Then on June 1st, the Portland State University Alumni Association’s wine club, Viking on the Vine, is hosting their first-ever tasting event at Stoller Family Estates in Dayton. That event features 10 local winemakers, excellent food and interviews with each winemaker.
Q: What is a fun fact that very few people know about you?
I’m going to keep my moniker a secret, but in my former life, I was a radio and club DJ and produced a show for the pirate radio outfit Portland Radio Authority. My show was broadcast nightly from 12 Midnight to 2am before we were shut down by the FCC, but I continued to work with them as they made the transition to an internet-only broadcast station. (It’s going to take all of my willpower NOT to try and find out what his DJ name was.)
Check it Out.
Archetype12 Wines offers tasting experiences by appointment at its southeast Portland tasting room located at 4855 SE 18th Avenue. You can book by calling (971) 999-1809 or emailing Jason@Archetype12.com. Or feel free to stop in from 1-6pm on Saturdays and Sundays with the last seating at 5:15pm.
