4 | EDIBLE PORTLAND SUMMER 2025 Farming for the Future Rooted in regenerative practices, one Willamette Valley winery hopes to spark a movement BY KERRY NEWBERRY | PHOTOS BY DEAN CAMBRAY If home is where the heart is, it’s easy to see why Rob Townsend and Pam Turner live for the time spent at their wine country estate. After discovering a twenty-acre plot in Oregon’s famed Dundee Hills that had never been farmed, the couple dedicated the next ten years to cultivating the Willamette Valley’s first Regenerative Organic Certified vineyard. Like many in the world of wine, the couple launched Ambar Estate as a second act. Townsend’s distinguished career includes work as an international corporate attorney and impact investor, and Turner dedicated her career to public health and most recently authored multiple children’s science books. Both also volunteered with conservation-focused nonprofits like the Nature Conservancy. One of the first decisions they tackled together in the Dundee Hills was how to farm their land — an overgrown mix of scrub oak and invasive blackberries. “We knew we wanted to farm organic from the beginning,” says Turner. “Then I heard about regenerative organic viticulture, where you're farming to make the ecosystem not just sustainable, but better than it was before.” In a vineyard, these natural practices include planting cover crops, integrating grazing animals and enriching the soil with minimal (or no tillage) — a method that increases the organic matter of the soil and maintains the complex microbial systems underground. “It’s a way of farming where you can be part of a climate solution, rather than the climate problem.”
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