According to Native American lore the Barking Frog is a symbol of prosperity, considered friendly as it is said he signals mankind that all is well with the environment. Frogs are considered biogenetic canaries.
Our philosophy in winemaking is similar in that we only select our grapes from vineyards that are earth friendly and are sustainably farmed, which makes wines with excellent concentration, complexity and elegance.
Our winemaking style is to utilize fully ripe fruit and to maximize and build complexity with structure in all our wines. We do everything we can to allow the ‘somewhereness’ of the wine to be expressed. We want each wine to reflect the uniqueness of its terroir.
Production is limited to ultra-premium small lots of handcrafted Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley and Syrah, Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon from Washington.
Ron Helbig started making wine in 1991 here in Oregon as an amateur. After more than a decade of experimenting with different varieties of both red and wine vinefira Ron started entering wine competitions and won dozens of medals all within a couple of years.
After going as far as Ron could as an amateur he decided to pursue a degree in winemaking. As part of that process Ron needed commercial wine making experience and befriended Laurent Montileau of Solena wines and secured an internship with him as he developed NWWC.
Ron’s first year he worked all phases of processing and returned the following year to do the analytical work in the lab.
After a couple of years of Laurent’s mentoring an encouragement he decided to take the leap into the commercial side of winemaking and began to construct a business plan to launch a winery.
With 300 wineries in Oregon at the time Ron new he had to be different, thus Barking Frog Winery was launched in 2005. A unique name, a different winery concept being part of an alternating winery group, and a desire to make varietiels in addition to Pinot Noir and using a revolutionary bottle concept (Vino-Seal) that replaced cork with a glass stopper. So going into the wine business bucking most of the traditions earned Ron the title of a “rogue winemaker” by the Sherwood Gazzette.
