(PD) - Jackson Family Wines continued its push into Oregon on Monday by announcing it has purchased the Penner-Ash Wine Cellars, a well-regarded pinot noir producer in the Willamette Valley.

Under the terms of the deal, Santa Rosa-based Jackson Family Wines will acquire “substantially all” of Penner-Ash’s business assets, including its winery and about 15 acres of sustainably farmed vineyards.

Lynn Penner-Ash will continue in her role as winemaker and also have control of overall winemaking decisions, including grape sourcing.

Lynn and her husband, Ron Penner-Ash, started the winery in 1998 with 125 cases of pinot noir. In 2015, it produced 16,000 cases of pinot noir, syrah, viognier and riesling. The sale price was not disclosed.

Lynn Penner-Ash said in an interview she felt comfortable with the sale as trust had been built up over the past few years between her winery and Jackson Family Wines. 

For instance, Penner-Ash was able to continue to source grapes from the Zena Crown vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills wine region that Jackson Family Wines bought a few years ago. In other cases, out-of-state vintners have bought Oregon property and then voided the contracts with local winemakers.

The sale will allow Penner-Ash to concentrate on winemaking and not the other more mundane aspects of running a winery, from issuing W-2 forms to learning the rules on shipping wine to other states. The deal also is another example of the growing reputation of the wine region, especially its pinot noirs.

“Oregon has been making world-class wines for years. It was hard to have people take us seriously,” she said.