Winemaker
Rollin Soles
- Discipline
- Winemaker
- Based in
- Dundee, Oregon, United States
i. Biography
Rollin Soles is winemaker emeritus of Argyle Winery in Dundee, Oregon, and a defining figure in Oregon sparkling wine. At Argyle, the work was shaped from the start by grower-first thinking, block-by-block attention, and the discipline of small-lot production. As a co-founder in 1987, Soles helped set a standard that was exacting without becoming rigid, with each vineyard parcel given room to register in the finished wine. The result is a style associated with precision, patience, and restraint rather than excess.
The Path
Training at Texas A&M University and the University of California, Davis gave Soles a formal base for a career that balanced structure with experimentation. In Oregon, that background found its most durable expression at Argyle Winery in Dundee, where he served as general manager and winemaker until 2013 and helped guide the estate through years that established its place in the state’s sparkling wine landscape. That continuity matters: the work is less about reinvention than about extending a practice over decades.
The Work Today
Winemaker emeritus is the title that now frames Soles’s place at Argyle Winery in Dundee, Oregon, and in Oregon sparkling wine more broadly. It marks a long run of cellar and vineyard work carried through bottle after bottle, vintage after vintage, with the estate he helped start remaining the central reference point for his name. About the long arc of that work, he has said, "Corby and I have had the farm since 1987."
Signature
Extended Tirage Brut, Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Nuthouse 2003, Chardonnay Willamette Valley 2002, Knudsen Vineyard Brut, and Spirithouse Pinot Noir outline the range of Soles’s cellar work. The common thread is control: sparkling wine handled with patience and articulation, and Pinot Noir and Chardonnay shaped with the same attention to texture, tension, and balance. Riesling belongs in that same frame, showing that his method has moved across styles without losing its disciplined core.
In Their Words “Making sparkling wines has made me a better winemaker, and certainly has made me a more fun one.”
Acclaim
Extended Tirage Brut is the wine most closely tied to Soles’s reputation, described as the top-scoring U.S. Sparkling wine for six years running and a repeated Wine Spectator Top 100 wine. The recognition reflects a method built on technical rigor, small-lot focus, and balance across sparkling wine, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Riesling. Soles’s legacy at Argyle Winery is not just that he made wine there, but that he helped establish a measured, site-conscious way of making it that was built to last.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Rollin
What is Rollin Soles's current role?
Rollin Soles is winemaker emeritus.
Where did Rollin Soles train or study?
Rollin Soles trained at Texas A&M University and University of California, Davis.
What is Rollin Soles known for?
Oregon sparkling wine.
