To David Rizzo, wine-making is more than his second full-time job, its a passion.

Rizzos first job in customer service program management for a high-tech Fortune 50 company takes 50 to 60 hours a week, he said, but the Beaverton man also dedicates a lot of his time to making wines for his own label, Rizzo Winery, in Salem and for Sno Road Winery, owned by Lloyd Piercy, in Echo.

I buy fruit from Echo West Vineyard, and we crush under both his label and mine, he said.

Rizzo moved to Oregon from upstate New York in 1995 and began searching for a source of grapes so he could make wine.

I started out as a home wine maker, and I couldnt make enough wine for the people around me, for friends, family, and one thing led to another, he said. My first vintage was 2001, and then in 2006, we went commercial.

The grapes at Echo West Vineyard were planted in 2004, reaching full production in 2007, and now that he is buying grapes from Echo, Rizzo said he brings a crew of one to four people to eastern Oregon to help make the wine each year.

I love the experience here, of making the wine here (in Echo), and I absolutely love what they built in this little town and the support they get from the people in the surrounding area, he said.

Rizzo said all winemakers have their own styles, and all wine drinkers have their own preferences.

I craft wines for my palate first, he said. If your palate is similar to mine, youll like my wine. If its not, you wont.

He said he still has a lot to learn and learns every day, every vintage how to better create the wines he enjoys.

My focus as a winemaker is on single vineyard, single varietal, so you can express the characteristics of the particular terroir and the varietal, Rizzo said. When I pick up a bottle that says cabernet sauvignon, and it talks to me about the benchmark characteristics of cabernet and then the dirt expresses itself through the wine, thats what I love.