Pull! Hitting the mark with wine.

In his day job, winemaker Michael Claypool has helped the world’s biggest brands – Disney, Microsoft, Charles Schwab – tell their stories to the public. At Clay Pigeon Winery, he applies his creative brilliance to his winemaking.

Michael takes an experimental approach, questioning the “rules” of winemaking and challenging every assumption. Before starting Clay Pigeon, Michael did it all – working as a cellar rat, a wine retailer, a sommelier, and an assistant winemaker in Sonoma. He came to Portland dreaming of his own urban winery and started in his garage.

Today, Clay Pigeon is an urban winery in Portland with a tasting room and restaurant called Cyril’s. Michael’s partner, Sasha Davies, is a prominent cheesemonger and cheese expert – and Cyril’s is a spot where you can always find great wines paired with extraordinary cheeses. (Despite the usual associations, cheese might be the hardest thing to pair well with wine.)

Why Clay Pigeon rather than the usual eponymous branding? Michael says he just wasn’t “keen on naming the winery after myself”. Shooting clay targets, Michael says, is a lot like winemaking: they’re shot into the air, and it’s your job to hit the mark “while it tries to get away from you.”