Located in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, Borderlands Vineyard is a premier site within the Rocks District AVA — the most distinctive terroir in the United States.
Vineyard facts
Planted
11.72 acres
Appellation
The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater
Nested in
Walla Walla Valley → Columbia Valley
Soil
Basalt cobbles, Freewater series
Varieties
Syrah, Viognier, Grenache
Farming
Atlas Vineyard Management (Nick Mackay)
I.
Our Story
Our Story
Borderlands Vineyard was founded by wine-industry professionals who spent their careers growing and making other people's wines across California, Washington, Burgundy, and Oregon. Eventually that knowledge turned inward, toward a project of their own — built around a specific site rather than a portfolio.
The founders spent roughly two years searching the Rocks District before committing to Borderlands.
Borderlands Partners, LLC was formed in 2018; the land closed and the deed was recorded in Umatilla County on 15 January 2019.
The site was a Red Delicious apple orchard for more than thirty years before the trees came out and Syrah went in — consistent with Milton-Freewater's long history as fruit-growing country. An old vine reportedly dating to the 1800s still grows wild in a nearby field.
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The Name
The Name
Borderlands takes its name first from geography. The vineyard sits in the Oregon corner of the Walla Walla Valley, in the narrow reach of the Rocks District that runs hard against the Washington line — border country, in the plainest sense.
The name carries a second meaning we've come to trust: that the most distinctive ground lies at the edges rather than the center. The fringe, the margin, the outlier — these are where character concentrates. The Rocks District is the case in point, the only American appellation defined by a single soil, a deep bed of basalt cobble that behaves like nowhere else. Borderlands sits at the edge of the state, at the rim of the alluvial fan the river built, along the old rail line that bounds the ground.
At the edge of two states — and of the ordinary.
II.
The Partners
The Partners
Zach Rasmuson, Pete Przybylinski, and Neil Bernardi
Partner
Zach Rasmuson
Zach Rasmuson has spent three decades shaping site-expressive wine across Napa and the Anderson Valley. He joined Duckhorn in 2003 as winemaker and general manager of Goldeneye, where he earned early California sustainability certification and helped build one of the state’s first LEED Gold winemaking facilities. He has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The Duckhorn Portfolio since 2012. His earlier years at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, Robert Sinskey Vineyards, and Husch Vineyards shaped a career defined by discipline, sustainability, and respect for place. He studied the history of science and philosophy at St. John’s College.
Partner
Pete Przybylinski
Pete Przybylinski spent three decades at The Duckhorn Portfolio, beginning in 1995 as the company's first salesperson and later serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Sales Officer. His career has been built on relationships, conviction, and the ability to bring serious wines into the right rooms. A lifelong wine-industry veteran — and, away from wine, an avid skier and ski patroller — Pete brings a deep belief in the future of Borderlands Vineyard and the singular fruit of the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater.
Partner
Neil Bernardi MW
Neil studied at UC Davis, receiving degrees in viticulture and enology and in Italian, before working across New Zealand and California. Over fifteen years with The Duckhorn Portfolio he worked in various roles, becoming the company's first Vice President of Winemaking, later leading Kosta Browne, Canvasback, and Goldeneye as VP/General Manager. Today he is President of Colgin Cellars in Napa Valley and a Master of Wine.
III.
The Rocks
The Rocks
A Rocks District estate, in the Oregon corner of the Walla Walla Valley, in the greater Columbia Valley.
Appellation nesting
Columbia Valley
Established 1984 · ~11,000,000 ac · ~50,000 planted
Walla Walla Valley
Established 1984 · ~182,000 ac · ~2,930 planted
The Rocks District
Established 2015 · ~3,767 ac · ~500 planted
The nested appellations — each wholly inside the larger.
·
Terroir
Geology, climate, and the appellation
Volcanic foundation
The Columbia River Basalt Group formed roughly 16.7 to 6 million years ago — more than 300 flows spread across over 210,000 square kilometers, arriving through the Chief Joseph dike swarm. Black basalt is the region's bedrock.
Ice Age floods
The Missoula Floods, roughly 15,000 to 13,000 years ago, laid down flood silts — the Touchet Beds — elsewhere in the region. The Rocks District is different: its defining material is river cobble, built up afterward by the Walla Walla River.
River and cobbles
A gently sloping alluvial fan of dark basalt cobbles sits in a thin sand-and-silt matrix — the Freewater series, which defines roughly 96% of the appellation. The soil drains instantly, pushing roots deep, and acts as a thermal battery, radiating stored heat into the fruit at night.
Flavor signature
The wines carry a savory, saline, umami-driven signature: minerality, black olive, tar. Insiders call it, in quotes, "Rocks funk."
Climate
The climate is continental, in the rain shadow of the Cascades — roughly 13 to 15 inches of rain a year, so irrigation is necessary. The Blue Mountains catch 25 to 45 inches and feed the river. Diurnal swings of roughly 25 to 30°F give the fruit power and freshness.
Hot, dry summers and cold winters, with a wide day-to-night swing through the growing season — which supports both ripeness and acidity in the fruit.
AVA origin
The appellation petition was filed by geologist Dr. Kevin R. Pogue of Whitman College; the effort was led by Steve Robertson of Delmas / SJR. The TTB approved the AVA in 2015. The modern spark traces to Christophe Baron in 1996. Planted acreage has grown from roughly 280 to about 500 acres, overwhelmingly Syrah.
IV.
Vineyard
Vineyard Details
11.72 acres across five blocks — 9.79 acres of Syrah, plus Viognier and Grenache. Spacing is 8 by 4 feet, roughly 1,361 vines per acre.
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Plantings
By the block
Borderlands Vineyard plantings by block: variety, clone, rootstock, acreage, vine count, and row count.
Block
Variety
Clone
Rootstock
Acres
Vines
Rows
1
Syrah
470
101-14
2.81
3,832
27
2
Syrah
470
3309C
3.02
4,112
28
3
Syrah
Joseph Phelps sel.
3309C
3.96
5,396
36
4
Viognier
01
3309C
0.88
1,200
8
5
Grenache
1A
3309C
1.05
1,425
9
Total vine count note: block maps differ (approximately 14,800 vs. approximately 16,000); the per-block figures above are the primary source.
Block 3b carries the same clone and rootstock but is trained to bilateral cordon VSP rather than the modified fan used elsewhere. The site falls roughly 20 feet to its northwest, low corner.
Parcel geometry drawn from the recorded deed — a parallelogram bounded on the west by the Section 34 line and on the south by the Oregon–Washington rail right-of-way, rising ~20 ft to the southeast — the northwest corner is the low point. Rows run north–south, parallel with Prunedale Road; blocks are vertical columns, widths scaled to row counts. Block order west-to-east schematic.
·
Timeline
From ground to vine
2018
LLC formed
2019
Land closes; site build — drip irrigation, trellis, weather station
Spring 2020
Syrah planted (Blocks 1–3)
Spring 2021
Viognier and Grenache planted (Blocks 4–5)
2026
Farming under Atlas Vineyard Management
·
Water rights
Water
Borderlands sits within the Walla Walla River Irrigation District, with senior surface-water rights carrying priority dates of 1880, 1901, and 1912.
·
Certification
LIVE Certified
Borderlands Vineyard has been LIVE Certified since 2023, meeting independently audited standards for sustainable viticulture in the Pacific Northwest.
This is ancestral Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla country. Walla Walla means "running waters."
The Rawhide Railroad
In 1868, Dr. Dorsey S. Baker incorporated the Walla Walla & Columbia River Railroad — a three-foot narrow gauge line built on wooden rails capped with strap iron, known locally as the "Rawhide Railroad." It was completed from Wallula to Walla Walla in October 1875, the first railroad in the Pacific Northwest beyond the Columbia portage lines. Wheat leaving Walla Walla jumped from roughly 570 tons to more than 30,000 tons within a year.
The line that reached Milton-Freewater
In 1878, the Oregon Steam Navigation Company bought control of the line. Between 1881 and 1883, a branch was built to Blue Mountain Station, near present-day Milton-Freewater. In 1881, the line was converted to standard gauge under Henry Villard's Oregon Railway & Navigation Company — later the Oregon–Washington Railroad & Navigation Company, and ultimately part of Union Pacific.
The deed connection
Borderlands' recorded deed fixes the parcel's southern boundary as the OR&N right-of-way — the same lineage begun by Baker's Rawhide Railroad. This single fact anchors the vineyard's name in that history.
The electric interurban
The Walla Walla Valley Railway opened a 14-mile electric line to Milton and Freewater in 1907 — "short on mileage, but long on tonnage." It carried freight until 1985.
Further background
Milton was founded in 1872 and Freewater in 1889; the two towns consolidated in 1950. Italian winemaking in the area dates to the 1860s, part of a broader orchard century that included the Red Delicious trees later cleared for Borderlands' vines.
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Farming Team
Current farming partner, effective 2026
Atlas Vineyard Management
Founded in 2006 and based in Napa, Atlas manages more than 1,600 acres and has developed more than 3,000 acres across California, Oregon, Washington, and Texas, with a track record that includes Wine Spectator Top-100 wines and a Wine of the Year. Atlas recently acquired Results Partners, its Pacific Northwest operation; the combined company's name is in transition.
Vineyard Manager
Nick Mackay
Nick Mackay was raised in Benton City, in the Red Mountain AVA, and studied viticulture and enology at Washington State University. His Pacific Northwest career runs through Mercer Ranches in the Horse Heaven Hills and Shaw Vineyards in Red Mountain before Borderlands.
V.
Winery Partners
Our Winery Partners
Borderlands fruit has gone into wines made by producers across the Pacific Northwest and Oregon. The wineries below have sourced fruit from Borderlands Vineyard.
Founded in 2018 by Brad Bergman and Doug Frost, MS, MW, Echolands Winery farms an estate site in the Mill Creek district of the Walla Walla Valley, in the foothills of the Blue Mountains.
Founded by winemaker Darby English in 2002, Darby Winery makes small-batch Rhone varietals and Bordeaux blends from vineyards across Washington State, with tasting rooms in Woodinville and Seattle.
Founded by Jessica and Paden West, Approachment Wines is a small, appointment-only producer based in Oregon's Willamette Valley that sources fruit from select vineyards in Washington and Oregon, including Borderlands Vineyard.
VI.
Contact
Borderlands Vineyard
Address
Prunedale Rd, Milton-Freewater, Oregon — Walla Walla Valley
