The Saffron Story
Saffron Fields began with a shared dream.
In 2003, Angela Summers and her husband, Sanjeev Lahoti, visited Oregon wine country and fell in love with the beauty of the Yamhill-Carlton AVA. Standing on a hillside grass seed farm overlooking the Coast Range and surrounding vineyards, they imagined building a home where family and friends could gather to enjoy the beauty of the Willamette Valley. That dream led them to purchase the property and transform it into Saffron Fields Vineyard.
The first vines were planted in 2007 with a commitment to growing exceptional pinot noir. Their first harvest in 2009 was crafted by acclaimed winemaker Tony Rynders. During barrel tastings the following spring, Angela and Sanjeev realized the young vineyard was producing wines of remarkable character and quality. In that moment, their vision changed. What began as a dream of living in Oregon wine country became a passion for creating estate wines and a destination where exceptional wine, art, and landscape engage the senses.
We have been longtime fans of not only the wines, but the hospitality and the amazing tasting room and art collection. This is truly a Willamette Valley gem.
– The Cartwrights
A friend recommended this spot to us, and we could not have been happier. The art, landscaping, yard games, and staff are just incredible – and the wine is top tier! Stop by if you love wine and a good time, and grab the snack mix for salty and sweet munchies.
– Local Google Guide
Saffron Fields released its first estate wines from the 2010 harvest and opened its hospitality center overlooking the vineyard in 2013. Following Sanjeev’s passing in 2020, Angela chose to carry their shared dream forward, building on the vision they created together while adding her own passion for hospitality, art, gardens, and sustainability.
Today, Saffron Fields remains a small, independently owned estate winery, producing approximately 2000 cases of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Rosé of Pinot Noir, and sparkling wine each year from our Yamhill-Carlton vineyard.
The Owner
Angela Summers is an entrepreneur, engineer, and vintner who brings a lifelong passion for excellence, creativity, and hospitality to Saffron Fields Vineyard.
As founder and president of SIS-TECH Solutions, Angela is an internationally recognized leader in process safety and automation. After her husband, Sanjeev Lahoti, passed away in 2020, she continued the vision they began together while shaping Saffron Fields with her own perspective and leadership.
A passionate advocate for the Willamette Valley, Angela believes Oregon produces some of the world’s finest pinot noir. Her love of art, gardens, and architecture inspired Saffron Fields to become more than a winery. It is a place where exceptional wine, art, and landscape engage the senses, creating memorable experiences for family, friends, and visitors from around the world.
The Winemaker
Tony says, “Saffron Fields showed a distinct personality from its first vintage and has continued to grow stronger as the vineyard matured.” Today he describes it as “really hitting its stride,” with a characteristic dark-fruit profile, blue and black fruit, a distinctive tannic backbone, earthiness, and dried citrus that contribute complexity to its Pinot Noir.
Educated as a chemist, Tony Rynders began working in the wine business in 1989 in the laboratory at Mirassou Vineyards in San Jose, California. Wine quickly became his calling. Wanting to understand both its science and its art, Tony attended the University of California, Davis, earning a master’s degree in Enology and Viticulture in 1992, the same year Angela Summers and Sanjeev Lahoti took their first vacation to Napa Valley.
At Domaine Serene, Tony became one of the Pacific Northwest’s most acclaimed winemakers. During his tenure, he developed more than 25 wines and received more 90+ point scores from Wine Spectator than any other winemaker during that period. In 2008, Tony struck out on his own, founding Tony Rynders Consulting and creating what would become Tendril Wine Cellars. Tendril began with a single wine from the 2008 vintage and has grown into a family-owned Carlton winery focused on small-lot Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Over the years, Tony has developed a winemaking philosophy he calls “slow wine.” He works closely with vineyards, ferments in small lots, adapts his decisions to each vintage, ages wines longer, and uses blending to bring together the character of different vineyards, clones, and soils. For Tony, great wine begins and ends in the vineyard.
Saffron Fields has been part of that evolution almost from the beginning. Tony purchased the vineyard’s entire first harvest in 2009 and became Saffron Fields’ first winemaker. More than 15 vintages later, he remains its winemaker today. The relationship has given him something unusual: the opportunity to know a vineyard from its youth through maturity and the latitude to approach its grape growing and winemaking as though the vineyard were his own.
Our First Blind Date
Sanjeev and I attended our first International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) in 2005, just months after purchasing what was then a grass seed farm in Yamhill. We had no farming experience, no winemaking experience, and only a dream of planting a vineyard.
On the first day, our group boarded a bus for an off-campus winery visit. As we pulled away from McMinnville, a man stood up, introduced himself as Tony Rynders, and welcomed everyone aboard. We were headed to Domaine Serene.
At lunch, two empty seats happened to be across from us. Tony took one.
As we enjoyed another remarkable IPNC meal, he asked, “So, why are you here? Are you in the wine industry, or do you just enjoy wine?”
Sanjeev smiled. “We just bought a grass seed farm. We’re planning to plant a vineyard. Maybe one day we’ll make wine.”
Tony paused.
“Do you have any farming experience?”
“No. We’re both engineers. Our parents grew up on farms and can’t believe we’d choose to own one.”
“What about wine industry experience?”
“No.”
Tony looked at us, raised an eyebrow, and said with a grin, “Well…good luck with that.”
Then he stood up and gave his lunch presentation.
Two days later, as we were leaving the closing brunch, I spotted an IPNC name badge lying upside down on the path to the parking lot. I picked it up.
It belonged to Tony.
I turned to Sanjeev and said, “Tony is going to make our wine one day.”
He laughed. “Angela, Tony works for Domaine Serene.”
“I know,” I said. “But this is a sign.”
Five years later, after purchasing our entire first harvest for his own label, Tony Rynders became Saffron Fields’ first winemaker.
Sometimes blind dates work out better than anyone expects.
