2023: Looking back through wine-stained lenses oregonlive.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from oregonlive.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Oregon wine pioneer Dick Erath died March 29, following two weeks in the hospital. He was 87. A former engineer, Erath was first inspired to pursue winemaking in 1965 .
The Road Home
By Sophia McDonald
Knudsen Vineyards may not be a household name in the same way as other Oregon wine brands celebrating a golden anniversary this year, yet it has played a pivotal role in some of the region’s best-known wine success stories.
From the top of her family’s 228-acre property, Page Knudsen Cowles, the winery’s managing partner, has a commanding view of the vines that provided fruit to pioneering still and sparkling wine producers. It is also a fitting setting to reflect on what has been a second home to her and her three brothers Colin, David and Cal Jr. for most of their lives. Both the new tasting room and growing wine label are part of a sweet homecoming, of sorts, for them, and a way for their family’s legacy to shine even brighter.
Half-Sibling Revelry
By Michael Alberty
Merlot is so Napa. The grape doesn’t belong in the Willamette Valley, right? Felix Madrid, owner of
Carlton is where farm, industry and community unite to grow, sell and drink Pinot Noir. It is the last place you would expect a Merlot outbreak. Madrid’s new Merlot-Malbec blend might just change that.
Madrid is no neophyte looking to make his name by toppling King Pinot. He came to the Willamette Valley in 1990 when Dick Erath invited him to become a cellar master. Madrid filled his own vineyard in Carlton with Pinot Noir a year later.