Wine is a biological inevitability and local winemaker Austin Culver’s love for wine and the community seems to have been just that, inevitable. Growing up in Paso Robles, Austin spent his childhood tending three acres of Zinfandel his father planted the year he was born.  After graduating from CU Boulder with a degree in Biochemistry, he moved back home to learn winemaking from some of the best.  Working with stellar California wines was both rewarding and educational, but there was something missing.  The mountains.

Enter Austin’s second passion. It only took one trip to Mt. Hood during the 2016 “snowpocalypse” year for Austin to be hooked and decide to move to the Columbia Gorge.  After an amazing two years of working for local winery Cascade Cliffs as the head of production, Austin decided to expand his winemaking horizons by working harvests in New Zealand and the Willamette Valley.  Now he turns his attention back to the Gorge and to furthering the wine potential that this region displays.

Austin founded CLYZM Wines in 2021 with the intent of sourcing grapes from specially curated vineyards and adapting his winemaking technique to bring spectacular wines into being.  Some will be raw, natural beasts parading in a jungle of flavors.  Others will be austere traditionally-made desert dwellers meditating on the ultimate question.  

All will be unique.  All will be decadent.

Bring out the CLYZM  

Cheers everybody

-Austin