Hip Chicks Do Wine
Winemaker: Laurie Lewis & Renee Neely
Location: 4510 SE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97202
Instagram: @hipchicksdowine
Website: www.hipchicksdowine.com
Laurie and Renee have been Pioneers in the Portland Wine Industry. They established Hip Chicks do Wine in SE Portland in 1999 and opened their tasting room doors in 2001.
Hip Chicks Do Wine is the labor of love by owners and winemakers Laurie Lewis and Renee Neely. Their passion for wine was sparked by numerous visits to wineries and vineyards throughout Oregon.
One day while enjoying a picnic (with wine of course) on the back of a pick up truck overlooking a vineyard one of them turned to the other and said, "We should make wine!". The other replied, "It can't be that hard, men do it all the time!"
From that moment on Laurie and Renee threw themselves headfirst into all things wine--reading books, making wine in their apartment, getting part time jobs at area wineries and taking winemaking classes. And of course that did LOTS of wine tasting.
The two fashioned a ten-year plan to start their venture which quickly turned into a five-year, two-year and then why not start now? In order to finance their adventure they ran up all their credit cards and put a second mortgage on their house. In the fall of 1999 they purchased enough grapes to make 500 cases of wine. The two of them haven't looked back and continue to share the winemaking producing 1,500-2,000 cases of wine annually.