Meet Michael Bockstahler

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michael Bockstahler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

We find our purpose in pursuing what resonates with us – deciding what we truly believe in. There’s a lot of noise to overcome, especially when starting a business in a very competitive niche realm such as boutique wine production and we want to make sure we’re really creating something new. By making wine in a way that really follows the nature of the fruit maturity on the vine and fermentation trajectory without trying to curve it too much, if at all in most cases… We end up with something uniquely expressive and delicate. Creating something in this very challenging and volatile way brings us closer to the mechanisms that nature uses to forge dynamic relationships that we all enjoy so much… That usher so much beauty and chaos into the world. We’re just very happy to be a part of it and to connect with it every way we can. There we find purpose.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

We are focused on crafting underrepresented styles of wine in the Willamette Valley from familiar grapes such as Chardonnay, Gamay, and Pinot Noir. We don’t own any land holdings nor do we own a winery but we share a co-op facility to produce our wines. We’re very interested in pursuing wines that are incredibly balanced, uniquely textured and have something very specific to say about the vintage and where they are grown. It’s really a pursuit of art as there isn’t really a demand for “underrepresented wines” as you can imagine, but it’s about the exploration of something new and that’s very rewarding for us. We produce very little amounts of wine, usually just a few barrels or so of each wine. Each wine is then branded with a unique piece of artwork, originally sketched by a real person. We’ll be launching 3 new wines in March of this year that each showcase a different aspect of a single block of Chardonnay and Gamay grown right next to one another. As the winemaker, I’ve had a career in wine for about 15 years, originally in Sonoma & Napa and this is my take on where I think wines should go next: thoughtful, truly small-batch, un-manipulated, undeniably delicious and relatively accessible to all audiences.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There’s an acronym… “AFS” Always ( ……. ) Something. The first year I literally spent every dime I had to purchase some fruit. This was in 2021 and I had recently been laid off due to the Covid crisis… Our fruit became smoke tainted and we also lost access to the facility we’d planned on making the wine in. All of this occurred two days before we were to begin production, so we had to start from scratch. The rest of that year went pretty similarly to how it started. I still recall hand cranking an old fruit press in the rain under a tent at 4am on what could barely be considered a crush pad in downtown Portland. Now I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to figure out so many things that at the time felt very catastrophic. There’s a very strong sense of resilience for this project and I think you can feel that in the intentionality of the wines.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Absolutely – we are definitely seeking to spread brand awareness and we love the idea of mutual partnerships. We’ve had some great supporters thus far from the restaurant industry in both Portland and the valley as well as Bend, OR. People who have a great passion for wine, food, and who are just cool people in general. It’s all about good vibes and making connections- we’re open to all opportunities.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://guerrillawineco.com
• Instagram: @guerrillawineco
• Linkedin: Michael Bockstahler