The Vineyard Years

Susan Sokol Blosser

Description

This book chronicles the personal journey of pioneering female winery owner Susan Sokol Blosser, from deciding on a whim to grow wine grapes in the early 1970s, to the trials and tribulations of starting her family-owned winery, Sokol Blosser, in the then little-known Willamette Valley, to the transfer of leadership from the first generation to the present. The themes of feminism, love, and loss are woven throughout the candidly rendered tale, which is interspersed with delicious recipes representing key moments in the author’s life.

In the last two weeks of 1970, my husband, Bill Blosser, and I each gave birth. I had our first child, Nik, and Bill closed the deal on our first piece of vineyard land. We were together in our excitement about both, but since the vineyard began as Bill's passion and I was utterly alone having Nik (fathers at that time weren't allowed in the delivery room), I think of them as one birth for each of us.

Baby Nik actually had a longer gestation period than our land purchase. The idea of a vineyard seemed to arrive out of nowhere, a bit of whimsy that took on a life of its own. We were driving our Volkswagen camper bus from Chapel Hill back to Oregon, where Bill was to use his just-awarded Master of City and Regional Planning degree to teach urban planning at Portland State University. Near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, we stopped to browse at a flea market. It was Pennsylvania Dutch country, and we thought we might find an antique treasure hidden in the junk. We meandered through with the other bargain hunters and, somewhere in the midst of tables laden with wooden clocks, rusty fruit bins, and old kitchen utensils, Bill started talking about starting a vineyard. He later confessed he had been thinking about it for some time and finally had enough nerve to bring it up.

"What do you think about growing grapes?" he asked, as we bent over a particularly handsome mantel clock.

"Grow grapes?" I asked. I turned to look at him. "You mean to make wine?" His question--unexpected and unconventional--startled me.

"Why not? I think it would be a neat thing to do." He sounded a bit defensive and I understood why. It was a wild, improbable idea.

. . . These founders of the Willamette Valley's wine industry, plus those who, like us, came shortly after stood out with their quirky individuality. Scruffy sideburns, beards, and mustaches aside, they were smart and enterprising, finding various paths to wine, discovering it as a passion and changing course to pursue it against all odds. With diverse backgrounds in engineering, music, philosophy, history, and humanities, coupled with a fierce spirit of independence, we were united in a passion for Pinot Noir. We were trying something that hadn't been done before and we eagerly shared information. The collaborative nature of the Oregon wine industry became one of its most notable features. Did any of us anticipate that our youthful adventure would create an industry that would, in one generation, add over two billion dollars to the Oregon economy? I surely didn't.

Sujets

• Alcoholic Beverages
• Beverages
• Pinot Noir
• Oregón
• Willamette Valley
• Cooking
• Vallée de la Willamette
• Oregon

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 10 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781513260723
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Vineyard Years
A Memoir with Recipes
Susan Sokol Blosser
Foreword by Alison Sokol Blosser
Text 2017 by Susan Sokol Blosser
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
Portions of this book were previously published in At Home in the Vineyard published by the University of California Press, Berkeley in 2008 and in Letting Go published by susansokolblosser.com in 2015.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sokol Blosser, Susan, author. | Sokol Blosser, Susan. At home in the vineyard.
Title: The vineyard years : a memoir with recipes / by Susan Sokol Blosser.
Description: Portland, Oregon : WestWinds Press, 2017. | Portions of this book were previously published in At Home in the Vineyard -Title page verso.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017005980 | ISBN 9781513260716 (paperback) | ISBN 9781513260723 (e-book) | ISBN 9781513260730 (hardbound)
Subjects: LCSH: Sokol Blosser, Susan. | Women vintners-Oregon-Biography. | Vintners-Oregon-Biography. | Wineries-Oregon-Dundee. | Wine and wine making-Oregon-Dundee. | Cooking-Oregon.
Classification: LCC TP547.B56 A3 2017 | DDC 663/.20092 [B] -dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017005980
Edited by Jennifer Newens
Designed by Vicki Knapton
Cover Photo by Andr a Johnson
Published by WestWinds Press
An imprint of

www.graphicartsbooks.com
Printed in the U.S.A. on FSC Certified Paper.
C ONTENTS
Foreword : By Alison Sokol Blosser
Acknowledgments
C HAPTER O NE: Mac Cheese Days
Mac Cheese
C HAPTER T WO: A Sense of Place
Bill s Meatloaf la Gascogne
C HAPTER T HREE: Oregon Vineyards Multiply
Nick s Minestrone
C HAPTER F OUR: Vision, Heartache, Love
Saag Paneer
C HAPTER F IVE: Embracing Sustainability
Zucchini Ribbon Salad with Oregon Pink Shrimp, Lemon, Olive Oil, and Herbs
C HAPTER S IX: Passing the Baton
Russ s Root Vegetable Soup
C HAPTER S EVEN: Second Generation at the Helm
Caribbean Evolution
C HAPTER E IGHT: Not Retirement, Reinvention
Cider-Braised Pork Tacos with Peaches, Fennel Slaw, and Cider Reduction
C HAPTER N INE: Family Ties
Farro, Roasted Fennel, Feta Treviso Radicchio Salad Blueberry Clafoutis
C HAPTER T EN: Oregon Pinot Noir Comes of Age
Russ s Grilled Wild Salmon
C HAPTER E LEVEN: Reflections
Schaum Torte
C HAPTER T WELVE: One Final Word
Dedication
To those fortunate few who, like me, have been lucky enough to experience the profound joys, and blistering challenges, of being part of a family business.
Foreword
M y mother could have had an easy and grand life, following in her mother s footsteps, with a French poodle by her side and a Mercedes in the garage. Instead, she chose to marry a boy from the West-my father-and become a farmer in Oregon. This is the story of that life.
My mother s life did not follow a conventional path. Admittedly, I am biased, yet I think you ll find her story a fascinating one, touching on themes many women-myself included-have struggled with for decades. Her frank retelling of the joys and heartaches of a life lived among the vines echoes that of the vines themselves-growing from a young cutting to a fruit-bearing plant, giving generously of one s life force like the grapes at harvesttime, pulling back during cold, hard times, like the grapes in dormancy, only to resurge again, full of life, in the new season.
My mother grew up surrounded by opportunity. From a well-to-do family in the Midwest, my mother attended private schools and went to Stanford University. She went on to earn a master s degree, not a common occurrence for women of her generation. While she was privileged by most definitions, my mother never took anything for granted. In fact, I ll never forget the story my mother told me when she and my father got married. My grandfather, her father, offered to give the young married couple his Mercedes convertible. They politely declined the offer, preferring to piece together the money to buy a VW camper instead.
She grew up in a time and place where, by society s definition, she needed only to marry well and her life would have been relatively stressfree. Instead, my mother and father sank everything they had into creating a business dependent on convincing people to drink wine from an undiscovered region made by people with no winemaking pedigree.
In 1991, when my mother took over running the winery in addition to her vineyard duties, she had no financial acumen, no sales or marketing training, nor any prior management experience. Undeterred, she was determined to convince people that Oregon could produce world-class wines. Selling each vintage was a struggle, yet my mother never gave up. Her endless stamina to work years of seven-day weeks eventually paid off. Sure, there were small victories along the way that kept her inspired to keep going, but those victories were spread out amongst enormous challenges. She s told me she relished them. Today, in little more than a generation, Oregon has a multibillion-dollar, world-renowned wine industry. And my mother played a huge part in creating that industry and helping it flourish.
Like the grapevines that grow, then die back as part of their life cycle, my mother s life did not always go in an upward direction. Sometimes it was all she could do to just keep moving forward. For example, my mother ran for elective office three times. Each race was harder than the previous with all the normal election-induced drudgery and personal attacks. Our family and business were often pulled into the uglier parts of it. Yet she kept her head high, even when she lost each time. This alone speaks volumes about the woman my mother is. Never letting defeat thwart the causes for which she fought, she continued to serve on the local school board and then started her own nonprofit organization to provide much-needed community support.
My mother approached her retirement from the winery with grace, wit, strength, and an unending love for our family. It was not an easy road for her, and you ll learn just how hard that struggle was in these pages, in her own words. I will just say that I only hope I can transition out of the business as graciously and gracefully as she did when it s my turn.
When I read the manuscript for The Vineyard Years , I suddenly realized that there are a lot of parallels between my life and my mother s. We both married young, divorced our first husbands, and remarried. We both had three kids: two boys and a girl, and our first babies were four weeks early. We both ran (or run) a winery, an uncommon role for women in our industry. We are both introverts, an obstacle when operating a business often in the public eye whose sales success is dependent on being outgoing and engaging. We re both impatient, ready to dive in, wanting to see results.
And we both love to eat. Not in the closet-eating kind of way, but in the belief that from time to time, a culinary experience can be a spiritual affair. We both relish that occasional meal that makes the stars shine brighter in our eyes and delights our taste buds and stomachs. We ve been lucky to share a few such occasions together. You ll soon understand how important food is to our family from the recipes my mother includes in the book, each reflecting different times of her life and evoking unique memories.
In reading her story, I couldn t help but reflect on my mother s life and, honestly, I just don t know how she did it. She raised three kids (who, for all intents and purposes, aren t terribly screwed up), started and helped grow not just a business but a multibillion-dollar industry, transitioned said business to the next generation, and then began a new phase of her life characterized by continued self-discovery and giving back to the local community. She has an impressive resume and an even more impressive heart.
My mother and I have clashed at times, but with the wisdom that comes with age, I can now see much more clearly who my mother is; she is the woman the little girl inside of me aspires to be. My mother learned early on to turn failure into opportunity. She always tells me it s okay to make mistakes. Actually, she encourages me to make them. But the key, she says, is to make interesting mistakes. The more interesting the mistake, the better the opportunity to learn. I hope you enjoy reading about both the amazing successes and the interesting mistakes of her life.
A LISON S OKOL B LOSSER Copresident/CEO, Sokol Blosser Winery December 2016
Acknowledgments
T he Vineyard Years retells my story from the perspective of age, adding a culinary theme and updating the thirteen years that have passed since At Home in the Vineyard ended. While The Vineyard Years includes selected parts from both At Home in the Vineyard , the story of the early days of Sokol Blosser Winery, and Letting Go , the story of my transition of control of the winery to my children, there is also much that wasn t included in either.
Emphasizing the culinary side of my winery experience gave me the chance to address an aspect of my life that has been so basic that I took it for granted. In previous books, I wrote about farming, family, and business challenges, ignoring the sensuality that wine and food provide. No more. Food and wine have taken their rightful place, front and center, in The Vineyard Years . The recipes included represent food memories and experiences I savor in many ways.
Credit for the n