Big Table Farm

Big Table Farm started in 2006 when Brian Marcy and Clare Carver moved from California's Napa Valley to Oregon's Willamette Valley to pursue their own wine project on their own land. Brian had spent the previous decade working in Napa and Sonoma cellars, building the kind of practical winemaking experience that an independent project demands; Clare brought a parallel background in art and farm work. The Gaston property they acquired was undeveloped, and the years following the move were spent simultaneously launching a wine project, planting vines and gardens, raising livestock, and eventually building a barn and winery on the land. The combined operation became Big Table Farm: a working farm and a wine label produced from the same property and the same hands.

• 2006: Brian Marcy and Clare Carver relocated from Napa to Gaston, Oregon, to launch their own wine project
• Brian had 10 years of California cellar experience; Clare brought a background in art and farm work
• Gaston property was undeveloped; the couple built the farm, barn, and winery from scratch over the following decade
• The combined operation: working farm with livestock, gardens, plus the wine label produced on site

Brian Marcy makes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay as the heart of the Big Table Farm range, with smaller production of Syrah, Pinot Gris, and other varieties depending on vintage and source availability. Fruit comes primarily from a network of Willamette Valley vineyards rather than a single estate site, with rotating single-vineyard bottlings from sources including Wirtz Vineyard, Sunnyside, Pelos Sandberg, and others. The approach is consistent with the négociant-meets-grower model that has become common among Willamette Valley specialists working at small scale: long-term relationships with vineyard owners, careful site-specific viticulture, and rigorous selection at harvest. The cellar is small and traditional, with whole-cluster fermentation in selected lots and aging in French oak with measured new-barrel use.

• Range centered on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; smaller production of Syrah, Pinot Gris, and other varieties
• Fruit sourced from a network of Willamette Valley vineyards rather than a single estate site
• Rotating single-vineyard bottlings from sites like Wirtz, Sunnyside, and Pelos Sandberg
• Small traditional cellar; whole-cluster fermentation in selected lots; French oak with measured new-barrel use

Clare Carver's original artwork on every Big Table Farm label has become as recognizable as the wines themselves. Each vintage carries a different illustration, often featuring the farm's animals, agricultural work, or rural Oregon scenes, and the labels are produced as letterpress prints. The combination of high-craft winemaking, the working-farm story, and the distinctive label art has built a durable cult following over the past decade and a half. The wines now sell out quickly on release, particularly the single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, and Big Table Farm has become one of the more frequently-cited Willamette Valley reference estates among sommeliers tracking the appellation's lower-intervention, farm-to-bottle producers.

• Every label features original Clare Carver artwork, produced as letterpress prints
• Labels often feature the farm's animals, agricultural work, or rural Oregon scenes
• Cult following built across the late 2010s and 2020s; wines now sell out quickly on release
• Frequently cited as a Willamette Valley reference estate for lower-intervention, farm-to-bottle production

Big Table Farm represents a particular strand of the modern Willamette Valley: high-craft, small-scale, often vineyard-network rather than monopole-estate based, and rooted in a working agricultural property rather than a stand-alone winery. Brian Marcy's Napa-trained winemaking combined with Clare Carver's farm and art work has produced one of the more distinctive Oregon labels of the past two decades, and the wines have built a critical and commercial reputation that few peers at this scale have matched. For drinkers tracking the Willamette Valley beyond the founding estates of the 1970s and 1980s, Big Table Farm is a defining contemporary reference.

• Defining contemporary Willamette Valley estate, post-founding-generation
• Combination of high-craft winemaking, working-farm operation, and original-artwork labels
• Brian Marcy's Napa-trained background applied to cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
• Strong critical and commercial reputation built quickly across the late 2010s and 2020s