About Us
Founded in 2022, Common Wealth Crush Co. is the first winemaking operation of its kind in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Built with small producers in mind, we are custom crush meets business incubator meets thinktank cooperative.
As small producers ourselves, we founded CWC to help grow the next generation of fellow Virginia winemakers, bringing these minds together under one roof where collaboration and creativity can flow. Leveraging strength in numbers and community, we strive to generate “common wealth” for all the makers in our ecosystem.
We are passionate about the winegrowing potential of our region, and believe sustained momentum requires a thoughtful and honest approach to winemaking. We aim to use each vintage to convey the time and place our grapes are grown, while seeking out fellow makers who share this philosophy.
The Team
We are a team with deep and diverse experience in Virginia as well as the West Coast and internationally. This foundation ensures our relationship with winegrowing on Virginia land will be forward-thinking, collaborative, and globally-minded – while remaining uniquely our own.
About our winemaking titles: very rarely can one say they were the only person involved in the making of a wine. That in mind, members of our winemaking team who have been with CWC for a year are officially given the title of “Winemaker CW##“, with the number indicating the vintage they started with us.
Ben Jordan
Co-Founder | Winemaker CW22
Ben began his career in Sonoma County and has worked in Virginia as winemaker at Early Mountain Vineyards, as well as GM and winemaker at Michael Shaps Wineworks. Alongside his brother, Tim, he oversees his family’s wine project, Midland, and associated vineyards planted on their ancestral Shenandoah Valley farm, Mount Airy. Ben is also a partner in Lightwell Survey, a collaboration wine project utilizing Shenandoah Valley grown grapes. He recently co-founded the grape breeding program, ViRV, which works with the USDA and Virginia industry to develop resistant varieties that produce high quality wines in the state’s shifting climate. Ben is a graduate of Duke University and received his MFA in playwriting from Carnegie Mellon University.
Tim Jordan
Co-Founder | Winemaker CW22
From overseeing winegrowing brands Star Party and Midland in Augusta County, to his winemaking and vineyard responsibilities at Common Wealth Crush, Tim has his finger on the dynamic pulse of Virginia wine. Born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley, he holds a PhD in entomology from Virginia Tech, with a focus on grapevine insects. This specialized knowledge and passion for Virginia winegrowing has propelled him through numerous roles in the industry over the years, including as vineyard manager for Michael Shaps Wineworks, winemaker at Barren Ridge Vineyards, consultant with Shenandoah Vineyard Services, and now co-founder of Common Wealth Crush.
Patt Eagan
Co-Founder | Strategy & Finance
Patt began his wine career nearly to the day he turned 21, inspired to follow in the footsteps of his champagne-producing French cousins. He moved to Charlottesville in 2012 to join the opening team at Early Mountain Vineyards where he spent 7 years working across hospitality, winemaking, distribution and strategy functions. He and fellow co-founders Ben and Tim Jordan began pursuing their concept for CWC upon Patt entering the MBA program at UVA’s Darden School of Business. Today, in addition to overseeing CWC’s finance and strategy, Patt serves as VP Strategy for Shadow Search, a DC-based boutique talent consultancy, and Venture Partner with Fairbridge, a NYC-based venture capital firm.
Lee Campbell
Partner | Hospitality & Operations
After getting her start in Washington D.C.’s and Manhattan’s top culinary and oenological establishments, Lee has been instrumental in establishing America’s natural wine fair circuit and promoting Virginia wines. A certified sommelier also working as a consultant, she draws from experience in nearly every aspect of wine and hospitality – retail, import, distribution, hotels, restaurants, wine fairs – and advocates for the integration of food and wine into a balanced, healthy, and joyful life for people of every background to savor. A native New Yorker, Lee is a graduate of the University of Virginia.
Zach Clancy
Production Manager | Winemaker CW22
Hailing originally from the Pacific Northwest in Portland, OR, Zach has worked wine harvests across the world from California to New Zealand. After some years in the Rockies in Colorado and Montana, he returned to California to make wine full-time and has carried his craft on to wineries large and small in Georgia and now Virginia. When he’s not making top notch wine at Common Wealth Crush, Zach indulges his outdoor side with hiking and trail running, and his creative side through painting, gastronomy, and travel.
Connor Jooste
Assistant Winemaker