A new sparkling wine estate has opened in Oregon's Dundee Hills, positioning itself at the intersection of traditional-method viticulture and high-end hospitality. Perlée, founded by Tiffany and Grant Austin, began welcoming guests on August 1, 2026, on a property the Austin family has held for more than 40 years. The estate spans more than 70 organically farmed and dry-farmed acres, with views across the Willamette Valley to the Coast Range and Mount Hood.
The Offer
Perlée operates on a reservation-only model capped at twelve guests per seating — a deliberate constraint that places it firmly in the ultra-premium experiential tier of American wine hospitality. Two formats are available: a Salon Experience at $250 per person, built around eight courses paired with the estate's debut wine, and a Full Experience at $400 per person, an expanded tasting menu that positions Oregon sparkling wine alongside international benchmarks. The property's culinary program is led by Chef Brian Barker, previously of Smyth, the three-Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant, whose daily-changing menu draws from estate gardens, surrounding forest, and Oregon producers.
Inaugural Release
The estate's first commercial wine is a Limited Edition Blanc de Blancs ($150), produced via the traditional method — the same labor-intensive secondary-fermentation process used in Champagne — from Chardonnay sourced across the Willamette Valley. The bottle is available exclusively through the estate, either in person during a visit or by phone, a distribution model that reinforces scarcity and drives on-site traffic. Perlée's longer-term plan ties its wine program to maturing estate vineyards, meaning the product lineup will evolve as the property's own blocks come into full production.
Market Context
The opening lands as American demand for premium sparkling wine continues to expand beyond the traditional Champagne and Prosecco categories. Oregon's Willamette Valley — already recognized globally for Pinot Noir grown in volcanic Jory soils — has attracted increasing attention from producers pursuing cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier suited to traditional-method programs. Perlée enters a competitive experiential-hospitality landscape that includes established Willamette Valley estates offering tasting programs, but its exclusive seating cap and Michelin-pedigree culinary team mark a clear differentiation strategy aimed at the luxury end of wine tourism. That segment has shown resilience even in softer consumer spending environments, driven by high-net-worth travelers seeking curated, place-specific experiences over volume-oriented tastings.
For the broader foodservice and hospitality sector, the estate model — where food and beverage revenue is bundled into a fixed per-person experience — reflects a wider shift among premium producers away from retail and toward direct-to-consumer formats that capture higher margins and build brand equity simultaneously. The $250-to-$400 per-person price range is consistent with luxury tasting-room benchmarks in Napa Valley and comparable international wine regions, suggesting the Austins are targeting a national and international visitor profile rather than relying on regional drive-market traffic.
"We wanted to create a place that, really, could only exist here," said Tiffany Austin, proprietress and co-founder, citing Oregon's landscape and ingredients as the estate's defining differentiators. Co-founder Grant Austin framed the ambition in broader terms, expressing a goal that guests leave with a deeper appreciation for Oregon's potential to produce world-class sparkling wine — an explicit positioning of the estate as an ambassador for the region's category credentials, not merely a single-producer showcase. That framing echoes the approach taken by premium wine estates developing regional identity programs in other emerging appellations across North America.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
