Travis Todd

Travis Todd is the winemaker and co-founder of de la boue wines, a small producer of single-vineyard wines in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. He grew up in North Carolina, and his path to wine started in hospitality, at the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Montana. There he rose to wine buyer and ran the club’s wine program, tasting widely and falling hard for Oregon Pinot Noir.

A trip to Oregon Pinot Camp in 2014 turned curiosity into a plan. After working a harvest, Travis and his wife Tess moved to Oregon in 2017. Over the next five years he went from cellar hand to head winemaker at one of the state’s largest wineries.

In 2019 he and longtime friend Chris Andrew bottled the first de la boue vintage, 150 cases funded with their own savings and no outside investment. Travis left his job in 2021 to focus on de la boue full time. Today he farms the 5-acre organic Vista Grande vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains and sources fruit from growers he admires, including Temperance Hill in the Eola-Amity Hills and Gregory Ranch in Yamhill-Carlton. Production has grown to about 2,500 cases, and each vintage sells out.

His approach starts in the vineyard: farm carefully, pick at the right moment, and let the site speak in the glass. In 2024 VinePair named him one of its winemakers to watch.