Taking the Leap, Oregon Pinot Noir & Building a Dream Wine Business

What happens when a lifelong winemaker finally gets the chance to own the vineyard he's always dreamed of?

In this episode of The Realtor Who Wines, Rashelle Newmyer sits down with Aaron Bell, Owner and Winemaker of RH Estate Wines at Red Hawk Vineyard in Oregon's Eola-Amity Hills, for an inspiring conversation about taking risks, following your passion, and crafting exceptional Oregon wines.

After more than 25 years in the Oregon wine industry, including nearly 27 vintages with one of Burgundy, France's most respected winemaking families, Aaron and his partner, Tracy Rogers, made the life-changing decision to purchase the nearly 50-year-old Red Hawk Vineyard and begin a new chapter as vineyard owners.

Their story is one of courage, timing, and pushing "all the chips into the middle of the table."

🍷 From Philosophy Major to Oregon Winemaker

Aaron never planned on becoming a winemaker.

While working at a steakhouse in Scottsdale, Arizona, Arron attended a blind wine tasting featuring an Oregon Pinot Noir that changed everything. Inspired by the wines being produced just miles from his hometown of Newberg, Aaron packed up, moved back to Oregon, and immersed himself in the wine industry.

What started in hospitality soon led to the cellar, where mentorship, curiosity, and years of hands-on experience shaped his philosophy of winemaking.

"Winemaking is an art first. Science is there when you need it."

🍇 Why Old Vines Matter

One highlight of this conversation is Aaron's passion for mature vineyards.

RH Estate Wines is home to vines planted as early as 1978, making them among the oldest-producing Pinot Noir vines in Oregon.

Aaron explains:

• Why older vines create more consistent wines
• How vineyard age impacts complexity and flavor
• The importance of terroir and site expression
• Why the Eola-Amity Hills AVA produces world-class Pinot Noir
• How the Van Duzer winds naturally cool the vineyards and help create balanced, elegant wines

If you've ever wondered why some wines taste so unique, this conversation offers a fascinating look into the relationship between climate, soil, and vine age.

🏡 Building More Than a Winery

When Aaron and Tracy purchased the property, they weren't just buying a vineyard; they were creating a lifestyle.

Together they've:

• Reimagined the Red Hawk brand as RH Estate Wines
• Preserved the vineyard's history while modernizing its identity
• Added a beautiful on-site Airbnb overlooking the vines
• Continued community events, wine club experiences, and live music
• Created a welcoming destination that's family-friendly, dog-friendly, and rooted in hospitality

Their philosophy is simple:

Serious Wines. Fun Times.

🤝 Community Over Competition

One of the recurring themes throughout the episode is collaboration.

Aaron shares how Oregon's wine industry is built on relationships, where neighboring wineries support one another, share equipment, and celebrate each other's successes.

That same spirit extends into RH Estate Wines through local partnerships, wine club events, harvest celebrations, and community-focused gatherings that make guests feel like family.

🌿 The Leap of Faith

Perhaps the most inspiring moment of the episode comes when Aaron reflects on taking the biggest risk of his career.

Leaving the security of a long-established winery to purchase his own vineyard wasn't easy, but it was worth it.

"If you're going to go... go. You have to be willing to take the leap."

For anyone dreaming of starting a business, changing careers, or pursuing something bigger, Aaron's story is a reminder that growth often begins on the other side of fear.

🔥 Why You Should Listen

If you love:

• Oregon wine and Pinot Noir
• Willamette Valley wineries
• Entrepreneurship
• Small business ownership
• Vineyard life
• Winemaking
• Hospitality
• Stories of taking bold risks

...this episode is for you.

Pour yourself a glass, settle in, and join us for a conversation about Oregon wine, old vines, community, and having the courage to chase your dream.

Cheers! 

Thank you for listening! Connect and collaborate with Realtor Rashelle on any of her social media platform pages > https://linktr.ee/RealtorRashelle 

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Realtor Who Wines podcast. I'm Rashelle Newmeyer. Your hostest with the mostest a student of life, a connector, a passionate wine enthusiast and your local favorite guide. Join me as we explore the vibrant Pacific Northwest. Savor the finest wines and champion the spirit of entrepreneurship. Each episode, I'll sit down with inspiring guests, supporting business ownership and uncovering the stories that make this community unique. So grab a glass of wine, settle in, and let's embark on a journey of discovery and connection together. Cheers. Good morning. Well, I guess it's good morning to us, right? It's good morning. But anybody listening? Yeah, it could be. Yeah, it could be anytime. But thank you so much for having me. I'd like to cheers you before we get started. Cheers. This is our Riesling 25 Riesling. So this is so good. I want to show this wine. This is truly one of the first wines that I've made. Start to finish here at RH Estate Wine. Really? One of the first people to try it. Oh, I'm so honored. Thank you. It's delicious. Yeah, it's a really refreshing, actually. Yeah, that's so good for the slurp. But it's part of the winemaking gig. Yeah it is. Will you please introduce yourself to everybody? My name is Aaron Bell. I am a native Oregonian that went to the University of Oregon and have been in the Oregon wine business since about 1999, in many different forms, but was hired in 2002 by a French family in the Dundee area. The winery, called domain. Drew and I ultimately went on to help make wine for that family, both in France and in Oregon, for almost 27 vintages. Yeah, I love that. And then we had the opportunity about a year and a half ago to purchase this vineyard, this nearly 50 year old vineyard in the Amity Hills. And we pushed all our chips in the middle of the table. Tracy Rodgers and I. Yes. And my partner in love, life, business. And here we are. Here we sit. So yeah, I definitely want to dive in to you purchasing this winery and becoming the winemaker here. But before that, can we have a little bit of history? Like, what was it about winemaking or when did you get the bug? Like, oh, I think I want to go into the wine industry. So I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was 1996, and I was a server at a steakhouse. Okay. Chicago steakhouse and servers have crazy hours because you serve until,

you know, 11: 2:29

00 at night. So our a happy hour would often be midnight, 1230. And there was another couple. So my ex-wife and I and the other couple were very interested in wine. So our happy hour be was we would each bring a bottle of wine, their house, our house, and we would brown bag them and we would, we would do like a blind tasting. Do a blind tasting. Yeah. And so we'd geek out and talk about the wine and try to make them from different regions. And I grew up in Oregon. I grew up in Newburgh. Organs. I was and I was selling organ wine. So I knew what was happening in Oregon. But working at a steakhouse, my interests were kind of taken to California, Napa calves, Napa Merlot, Sonoma Coast. And so we tasted these wines and I brought a Napa cab came as 1991 special select. I remember the bottle I brought and my friend George, he brought a bottle, unbeknownst to me, until his unveiled a 1996 domain drew in Willamette Valley Pinot noir, okay, made ten miles from where I grew up in Dundee. That was my kind of a moment of going, how did I had to work in Pinot Noir before that? That was the one that really gave me the Bing. Had Bacchus tapped me on the forehead. And so I have a degree in philosophy from the University of Oregon, and my my ex-wife had a degree in theater, so we're pretty hilarious. I have a degree in theater as well. It's good, but it's good. Brings the flakiness out on you. So we looked at each other the next day and we said, and I have my mom lives in Newburgh, and I have, you know, we had infrastructure. Sure. I said, why don't we go get in the wine business? So we did it. We literally two months later, we packed up from living in Scottsdale and moved home. Moved back to Newberg. Why did it move back to Newberg? I said I would never move back to Newberg because that's where I grew up. So I moved to Dundee. Wow. Yeah. Three miles. And we just threw ourselves into the wine business. We both got jobs working for the Ponzi family. And in the summer of 2002, I was approached by a friend that had gotten a job, hospitality wise at Domain Drew. And he said, you know, that was waiting tables again for the at the Dundee Bistro for the family. And he said, hey, I'm getting too busy to do this by myself. Would you want to help me do some tours and tastings at domain? Drew? And I was like, absolutely kidding me. Yeah, the reason I came back here. So I started that way. And and then shortly after I was there, there was there was a lot of cellar work to be done. And a gentleman named Brad McElroy, who has a winery to this day in the Ribbon Ridge, VA called Ayers. He was the seller master at the time. And he said, hey, Aaron, you seem pretty interested in the winemaking side of it. Would you want to be would you be willing to help a couple days a week, just do kind of cellar rat stuff? Yeah. And I said, yeah, I try not to steer me around and I'll try not to screw anything up. And so that's kind of was my, the door opening to, to being in the cellar. So and they, they thought it would end at some point. The general manager said, you know, we probably won't have work. We have French interns coming in. But I was like, okay, any experience is great. Yeah. And and that conversation, I remember being in the cellar and I was doing some topping of barrels, and the general manager came down to the. There's a mezzanine that overlooks the cellar at Dio Domain, drew in Oregon, and he said, hey, Aaron, come up to the office. And I was like, oh, here it comes. Yeah, it's been cool on the resume. Dang it. And it was opposite. This was at the end of July of 2002. He he said, you want a full time job and yes, I did. Yes. Thank you for asking. Anyways, Brad went on to leave in 2005. I had this kind of hybrid position from 2002 to 2005, where I would help with hospitality, but then I would also happen, and it was great because it kind of taught me the front, and it's like being the chef and the waiter at the same restaurant. Absolutely. Both sides. And in 2005, Brad left to do his heirs winery full time. And so I was promoted to cellar master. And I think that's when I kind of jumped into full time production. And then the next step was, is they said, if you want to further your your career as far as winemaking, we want you to have a degree. So I went back and I did my extension two year Davis degree from UC Davis in okay, that from 2005 and 2006. And then in 2006, I became the assistant winemaker in charge of day to day winemaking, and I remained that until until we bought this place in December of 24. Did you, when you were getting your degree, was that like online and you were still doing so? You were still working? Exactly. I had you know, it was a blessing and a curse. I had a full time job because I couldn't I did have to go and do some chemistry classes in Davis. Sure, but most of it was all theory on online. Yeah, except the final exam was to graduate with the two year degree. Was with on the job. Priceless. Yeah. I mean, I wrote I mean, the drew and family is considered one of the most famous winemaking families in the world, particularly with Peter Orange Chardonnay. And so between Veronique drew and my boss, direct boss and her father, I had nearly 90 years of winemaking experience to ask questions to. So it was a really amazing opportunity. And I asked a lot of questions. Yeah, they seemed very open to having students for sure. I was there not that long ago, and our the gal that was doing our tasting was a student at Linfield and the wine program, and she was getting ready to go do an internship this summer in France. So yeah, it's like there obviously that's still something that they're very huge. And we had we had students, you know, interns that would come for harvest. We'd had between 6 and 8 interns every year. That would vary between 18 years of age and 23 years of age. And but all but all being educated all in one. Totally. Yeah. Either at the beginning of their wine program or at the end of their wine program. And so that was something that was very important. The is passing, having the education and the theory you need when you have problems in winemaking, but also passing on their experience was hugely important to Robert Drew and burnings father and also Veronique. And then of course, ultimately in the end you start to look back at yourself and you go, oh my God, I've been doing this for 25 years. Yeah. Do you think you might bring that kind of culture here? Yes. Yeah. How do you already have any interns or you? I do, I have I have interns, but I have friends from all over the US. Yeah. That's amazing. Last year I had our first vintage 2025. I had five friends from all over the United States. I had friend from Texas, friend from Nashville, Tennessee. From from Florida. Friend from Georgia from from New York. Trying to broaden the spans. This year, I'm trying to get a friend in New Zealand to come up. Well, if you need a friend from Newberg. Okay, here I am. All right, all right, all right. I'll feed you well and drink you well, I. I gladly accept food and wine as payment for anything. To be honest, what was something as you were learning there that kind of stood out to you as like a real learning moment? Was there ever like a situation with yeast in the cellar or something where you're like, oh, that was a learning moment for sure. No, I mean, I learned a lot. Yeah. I think what you my philosophy background, I think I loved how they approached wine. You need science in winemaking when you have problems. Yeah, but winemaking can be an art if you pay attention. And the grapes are healthy. So for me, it was keeping the artistic side of it at the forefront and then using science behind the background. That was important to me because I love that you kind of see when you start to get education, you start to the more you know, the more you know and and the more fearful you become to remember that it is an art and you just pay attention. So I like the probably the thing I take the most from them is the cadence, the calmness of the that winemaking is not frenetic. It should be. It has its busy moments. Sure, sure. Yeah. Should be about calm and just paying attention. And it's always in the details and very German always say to me, I would say, oh, the numbers are this and that. And, and she goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it's fine. She goes has a taste. Oh I love that. Sometimes your best computer is your tongue. Yeah. Which is true. Yeah that is true. So I take that if I don't know if that answers the question. No it does. Yeah that's a great learning lesson. So how was your relationship with this winery like how did that whole conversation come about where like did you frequent here before you purchased or. Okay, no, I'd never been here. Oh, you just saw that it was for sale? No. It wasn't. Ever went for sale. Tracy, my partner, Chris Rogers, was a long time wine club member here. Okay, 15 year wine club member. And we started dating in October of 23. And she started pouring me these red hot wines. I had never I honestly had never had a red hot wine, at least I can remember before, before that. And she would always say, oh, you know, it's not too many dream wines. The wines are, the wines are nice, but the place is really fun. The owners are great. Yeah. And so fast forward to spring of 2024. And she says, hey, it's quiet Sunday. She goes, Aaron, what do you want to go up? I'm going to go pick up my wine club shipment at Red hook. Would you want to go? Yeah, sure. I said absolutely. So we came up. It was a rainy, quiet Sunday in March. And John and Betty, particularly the previous owners of Red Hawk for 20 years, they found out that I was working at Domain Druid and they were over at the house because we live in the house that they lived in on the property. And they came up and we started just chit chatting, introduce themselves. I had met them a couple of times in passing through the industry, but I didn't know them well. I mean, I've had this lovely conversation over the course of two hours about the wine business, life, politics and some point at the end of the conversation, Betty particularly not directed us by any means, really. It was just to the universe. She said, you know, we're getting tired. Maybe at some point we'll probably look at selling. I said, okay, I go, it'll take the right kind of buyer having your house on the property, you know, there's total property is 23 acres with the dwelling on the on the property, a winery, a tasting room. And so I left going, okay, well, good. Good luck. And over the course of the next five weeks, all of a sudden the name Red Hawk is just coming up over and over. Oh my gosh. Yeah. People in the industry that have never blurted the name Red Hawker said the name John Petite Collier are saying this to me, so I kind of like what's going on. So I remember I was driving by because Tracy lived in South Salem, and so I would drive from domain drew and I would drive Wallace Road in South Salem. So I passed the Red Hawks on every, every time. And finally I was passing the Redhawk sign and I just I had this epiphany. I go, what? What if this is an opportunity that this is literally walking quite literally across our foreheads and we're not even realizing it. Totally. So I called Tracy when I was passing here, and I said, maybe we should reach out and see how serious they were about about selling. Well, here we sit. Yeah, the rest is history. I just believed in it because I was collecting one. I knew Evesham would winery our direct neighbor winery. I buy a magnum still to this day of of Pinot noir, which is quite literally right next to ours. And so every time I had the red hot wines, I was going, God, they're familiar. I don't know why, but super familiar. Well, I was drinking wine for the last 20 years from a vineyard 20ft of 20ft away. Yeah. And so that was was it was exciting to me. The lifestyle I often say to people now is we bought a lifestyle, you know, again, living on the property, the small winery make about 3600 cases of wine. That's where we want to be. And that was kind of the so like I said before, off of Mike is that I just said we just pushed all our chips in the middle of the table and we said, go for it. Why not try? Yeah. So because from a winemaking standpoint, the dream is to make wines from, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 year old vines. And that's that's pretty common in Europe pretty easily. But in Oregon, that's rare. Sure. There are vineyards at old. I mean, we're the second oldest vineyard in this area in some of our vineyard planted in 78. But, you know, the first Pinot noir planted in Oregon was 1966. Yeah, in the Dundee Hills. So having, you know, I think people forget because we are so well known for Pinot noir that we're still pretty new in the wine industry as a whole. Like Oregon's still very new to the scene, considering when you had the conversation about the purchase, were you intentionally thinking about keeping their label, their name? No, I mean, we have changed. It is from the French. I took lineage, I wanted the vineyard to always be called rock. So the vineyard will always be called Red Hawk. I think that's important. We're the third owners. It's nearly a 50 year old vineyard. So to keep that, that that going is highly important. Yeah, but we did want to revamp the brand. So we it is RH estate wines at Red Hot Vineyard RH simply meaning Red Hawk. But we just wanted to modernize it. We wanted a new logo. And so that was important for us to keep the lineage. However make it make it ours. Well, I'm assuming they already had wine in the barrels that you're currently selling, right? It was turnkey with the inventory. So we both 23 inventory 24 was interesting because we knew that the sale was going to go through. We thought it was. And so I gave my recommendations. We were at that point we were under NDA. And so I was kind of sneaking up here in the night to meet me here, but I just emailed it on August, I emailed John and I said, you still on the joint? But if I was there day to day, this would be kind of my protocol, my approach to the winemaking punch down wise pump over wise, and he followed it to a tee. So I made him work a lot harder. But he he said the results are good. So in that transition you know of not owning it in 24, but the wines being vintage, I do see myself in the winemaking. Yeah. And I did try to come up as much as possible. You know, it's funny, all of his kind of helpers and people that were here to harvest help, they're always kind of looking like, what? What the hell's the guy from? Yeah. Why is he coming here for like a lot. So. Oh he just. And I would always be like, oh, he's my friend. He's my friend. I just want to see it on a smaller scale. And so it is what it wasn't too many people that are still around here. They're like, oh, I get it. Yeah, that was all announced. And that was right around things giving in 24. Know someone moving to Oregon? Send them my way. I specialize in relocation, and I'll treat them like family. Plus, you know, there's a glass of wine in it for him. Cheers. And I'm assuming you kept most of the staff or. No. Yeah. We retained everybody. We retained everybody. That was highly important to us that you know this is a 40 year old winery building, you know. So there's a lot of there's a lot of quirks to an old building so dowdy. For example, Daddy Williams, he's our estate manager. He kept him on. It was highly important because he's known as like, where is that plug go? What is that? What's the switch? Well, Annie knows the client center. The client and Megan, our our our tasting lead. She was working on and off here for five years. And so she knew, again, like you say, clientele. She kind of knew the rhythm, the the the feeling that we wanted to. We wanted because we wanted to keep the feeling of of the hospital. The hospital. But the casualness of this. Sure. Our new saying is serious wines. Fun times like I'll make the wines as serious as I can. But what I really loved about this place was the was the approachability of. And anybody can come and enjoy an afternoon here kid friendly, dog friendly or picnic friendly, you know, just want people to come and enjoy the view and some wine. Yeah, I love that. In fact, you even have an Airbnb here. Now we do short term rentals. It's a short term rental. Yeah. Airbnb. Yeah. We have the house and it's Tracy and I and two dogs in a 4000 square foot house. So we took the downstairs and made it into a beautiful little one bedroom Airbnb with a full kitchen. And and does it sleep 2 or 4 comfortably? They'll sleep two. Two for couples or like we had we had a mother daughter from Boston last week. So yeah, not that kind of thing, but private entrance, little orchard. I mean, you wake up and you look at Mount Hood to to 200 year old oak trees and some old vines. Yeah. If you're listening to the podcast, definitely go check out YouTube or Instagram to see some of the footage here. Because to wake up here would be amazing. It's beautiful. Great views. When did you decide to add the Airbnb was something we thought from the beginning. Just because we didn't know, you know, we we thought we don't have that much. We don't need that much storage. It's a lovely. Had a private entrance already and so early on. But then we we didn't kind of build it out until about four months ago. Okay. So it's still pretty new. Still pretty new. Really new. That's amazing. So if you're thinking about having like a wine getaway, you can even stay right here on the vineyard. Yeah, free tasting, complimentary bottle of wine. It just gets better and better all the time. Yeah, I think I might come over for a sleepover. That sounds fun. What, are you excited to make any of your own vintages? Or you're currently making your own vintages? So we just bottled all the 25 whites. That's what we're having now. So those those are my first full circle of it okay. The 20 with the barrels you see around us are all the 25 Pinot Noir that are still in barrel. I'll start deciding on different blends of these wines in the coming two months, and then blend some of them, bottle some of them in August. Of course, this kind of becomes a cycle. Sure, we'll need some of the barrels to be empty again for the 26 vintage. Some of them will over vintage, our reserve wines will over vintage. And so as I was saying earlier, it's important about Red Hawk is anything from this property will always have the name Red Hawk on it. It'll be RH wines, Red Hawk Vineyard, but we're buying fruit as well. So our little property gives us between 25 and 30 tons of fruit. And then we're also buying another 25 to 30 tons of fruit from different vineyards in the area. So I'm buying from the mountain Ava from a vineyard called the Lancelot. And that's that's going to be a wine that's not going to have Red Hawk on it. That would be an RH estate wines Dylan slot vineyard. For example. Yeah. Or making Chardonnay from a vineyard called Pearl Stad. That will be RH estate wine. So we're going to have kind of two brands running kind of next to each other. Sure. Giving credence to the Red Hawk, this vineyard, but at the same time giving a slight, slight alter ego personality to the RH estate wines. Yeah. Brand. Yeah, I love that. So what varieties do you currently grow here at the estate? So here I was saying this. We have a portion of our vineyard plant in 1978 that's unrooted Pinot noir we have and that was planned 78. So then you have to fast forward to 88. And that was one of the biggest planting was done. And they planted some Pinot gris. They planned some more Pinot noir, and they also planted eight rows of Riesling and some Dolcetto, which is kind of an obscure varietal. So I think we have some of the oldest Dolcetto planted in Oregon. We only have nine rows of it, so we make about 600 bottles. But it's an interesting bridal to be chosen here and probably actually now as we've kind of gotten warmer, it does get to a degree of ripeness. I think in probably 20 years ago they were making rosé out of it because they couldn't get it ripe. But as we've we've warmed I'm lost two vintages. I made a delicious red wine out of the Dolcetto. Yeah. You were talking about how important it was to you to have, like, a mature vineyard. Will you explain to those that are, like, very new to the wine industry, or don't even know how a vineyard produces grapes that, like, you can't make wine out of a three year old vineyard because those grapes are too young? Like the maturity of the grapes and the important that you get better. You could make wines out of grapes that are three years old, but you're probably not going to be much consistency. Sure, there's no there are cadences. It's much like a it's much like a child or even going into their teen years. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, and they start to get their cadence. You start to get to know what a vineyard is going to give you. By them getting older, they start to give you more consistency, more, more, maybe consistent blue fruit or more consistent spice. And they also start to self-regulate. So they're not so excitable by rain or heat. You know, their vines, the roots are going deep enough in the ground that they just they self-regulate themselves a bit better. So you have a hopefully in the end, the theory is that you have just a more consistent wine and it shows you what it wants to be in that given place. Yeah, that's a great analogy. I like the idea that you're saying it's like a child. That makes total sense because the older you get, the more consistent usually. Yeah, that's the goal anyway. But no, that makes sense. Like the excitable. I could totally picture that it is because sometimes young vines make fabulous wines and they'll do it for eight years in a row and you're like, oh, that's going to be a blockbuster vineyard. And then as it gets a little older, they, they, they lose their, their their excitement a bit. And maybe it's not as exciting. And then sometimes it's the other way around. It's of like it's not very good when it was you know, it was ten and all of a sudden you're like whoa, 15. It's like, oh, okay. It's starting to show something interesting. But I've almost never tasted a wine from a vineyard that's 35, 45, 55, 65 years old. That is not bringing some complexity to it that some something else. Yeah. Which is for me in working for the French is what we know about Pinot noir and really what people are specifically is it it signs where it's from. It goes back to when I felt like I knew this place already. Before you even tasting many of the wines is I was I was tasting the place right next to us and kind of yeah, they're slightly different elevations, a little different how we how we saw plants are a little different. But I mean, we're talking feet, not miles. And so there was already kind of this personality that I felt like I knew in advance of us buying this. Yeah. What are some of your goals with this place? My goals. I have one goal now. I have many goals to make money. Please come. Please come spend. No no no no no. The goal is to. The goal is to have fun making the best one possible. All right. That's a great goal. That's literally the goal. This is not generational for us. I don't have kids. Tracy has adult done kids. They don't seem to be interested. Maybe that could that could change. Yeah, but it's not generational. I just turned 50. So, you know, God willing, I want to do this time, like 65, make the best wine possible, but I want to have the most fun doing it. Yeah, absolutely. Highly, highly important to me. So we have a lot of fun during harvest. You know, our harvest party, for example, we all get down, break bread together. We all pressed everything and crushed everything and processed everything. So we get down at the very last day of harvest. When we've done picking the grapes, we have this party. It's called the French. It's called the pole, just the harvest party. But we just had some fun, and we had just enough fun that we ended up actually our own winery and tasting room and tasting room. So it goes back to the mantra of, you know, have fun, but but have fun making serious wines. Yeah. For those that don't know what harvest entails for this size farm, you said you had 23 acres. How many people do you need to harvest that? So picking wise we had up to ten people picking. So we were only picking about seven tons a day. So that's you know, that's for our little operation. Seven tons is good. Plus we're maybe having a little purchase fruit come in. So we have no more than ever ten tons in a day. So up to ten people picking in the vineyard. We don't go and pick ourselves. It's we we have a vineyard management company that helps us do that. But then I had an army from around the country. So it's I had at some points I had eight people helping me, probably too much help. But again, just wanted to be part of the fun. Yeah. The community. Yeah, yeah, that's important to community. And you know, there's some locals that are wine club members or our wine club members. Again, I had some friends around the United States, and it was so, you know, in the end, it's about 20 of us really, which is probably too much. But again, be contagious and people will want to come. Yeah, I love that. What about what are some of the goals I know you your personal goals, but what about for the winery itself? Or like events that you hope to host sometime or things you want to continue? That is the success of our business. You know, we're 85% DTC or direct to consumer. So our business is our tasting room, is our is our wine club is our events. Yeah. That's where I have to give the utmost kudos to Tracy. The she she's the planner of all of those things. Megan and Tracy, I show up and have fun and have insight. I have insight to the events, but I leave it kind of stay in my I stay in my lane, which is more the production side and, and we'll be in the hospitality side. But I just like we're talking about off off mike again about the ladies. We had ladies night here. Yeah. That's so fun. I wish I would have known about it and I'm guy so I'm just sometimes it's like I don't know if this is going to translate. I'm like, okay, we have a tattoo artist. We got the boutique shopping. There was some chocolates, there was some other things. And and then I was and there's 150 people here shopping and getting tattoos and drinking wine. And I was like, all right, I go, I'm just going to shut up, and I'm just going to sit over here and shake hands. Megan, do their magic. Yeah, I'll just try to make good wine. Us ladies, we like a good event where we can, like, accomplish multiple things in one spot. It's the best, this madness. It's a Wednesday night. Well, especially Tracy can relate to this because she's also in the real estate industry and title. So she has that gig and this gig and so and for me to like somebody that's like got multiple wears multiple hats to be able to like come hang out with a bunch of people at one time. Also do a little shopping, support local, support you guys local, get maybe a fun temporary tattoo all in like three hours. I feel like I just did a week's worth of events in three hours. It's very efficient and fun. Like, yeah, events like that makes sense. Community. We hit that a couple of times. That was that was highly important to us as well. Tracy grew up in Salem, was born and raised in Salem. So I mean, she could be the mayor. Maybe she will be someday, but she knows we don't go anywhere. Anywhere. Yeah. Knowing Tracy or vice versa. And I didn't have that. I worked for a larger brand that I did a lot of, you know, it had a more global spans. So, you know, I remember doing an event in Washington, DC for the American Heart Association, which is fantastic. That's great. But I just had this and this is not against June whatsoever. It just I was going different. What exactly different because there's different spans in scope. I was like, what is John do for the Newberg school district. And again not against true. And they just have a larger reach. Sure. Nothing. And I and so that I started when I started turning I said I love I loved what how much Red Hawk was giving to the Salem community. Yeah. Donated to the YMCA events to to just everything was just they had Merced themselves and I really really my soul was kind of searching for that. And, and Tracy was involved in. So I was going, God, that's another aspect of the business that I just love is that I feel like we we support the community and it's going to be 100% reciprocal. And I can tell you 18 months in, it's it's 110% reciprocal. Yeah. In every way. So speaking of this area, a lot of people, when they think about Oregon wine country, they obviously they think of Dundee, Newberg, Willamette Valley. Will you speak a little bit to Iola Hills and why people should come out towards the Salem Eola area? Because there are quite a few vineyards out here and do a day of tasting out here. It is the new best spot to grow. Yeah, it really is. I mean it is Dundee Hills. Dundee Hills has us. That's that's where Pinot Noir was first planted. Sure has the longevity of old, old vines. But if you're talking about what is the most exciting place and I know I'm slightly biased now, but I think that this would be true a lot. I can't know the exact stat, but we're we have the highest percentage of 92 or higher scoring wines by almost double. Oh wow. That's impressive Amity Hills Ava than any other ABA in Oregon. So the reason I believe is that we get we get ripe during the day. But what we have is we have the Van Duzer effect to our west. So the MIT Hills opens to the Van Duzer, which is our the lowest point in our coastal mountains, which gives us wind in the evening. And so we get a very nice, you know, high temperature, let's say in July it's 85. But if we're 85 on July 15th, we're going to be 56 at night, if that makes sense. 72 on July 15th, we're going to be 58 or 59 at night. Why grapes like that is it gives them a chance to rest. So they ripen during the day and they get to have a rest period at night, aka the diurnal shift in temperature. Yeah, that's what I think makes this place quite special. Of course, the volcanic soils, we have some jewelry soil. We have mostly nikaya, but it is that the Dundee Hills will also get the cooldown, but it takes them three hours longer to get there. It's because we just open directly to the wind. And I know it because I live in it now. The house every night, right when the sun sets, all of a sudden the trees to start howling and it's constant for about an hour and then it just dies down. Interesting. It's cool. We have built in air conditioning. Yeah. Love it. How many do you know off the top of your head the amount of wineries or vineyards out here? No, but I could say I could say there's at least 40 within a 25 mile radius. Yeah, I was going to say it's quite a bit. Bethel Heights, Bryn Mawr, Pearl Stad, RH wines, Evesham would lingua franca. It goes on and on. Yeah. And your experience, do you find that there's a lot of collaboration over competition or. Yeah, I was going to say most winemakers I've talked to, especially in the Willamette Valley, only a couple have been like, oh, I haven't found that. But most of said collaboration over competition is the community. That's what's that's what's nice about Oregon. You know, we're not we're not California. And then and you see it, you know, maybe there's a little more competition in the Dundee area just as a more established wineries. But coming to the hills was quite refreshing because everybody just wants to help everybody. Yeah. Like I'm loaning my tractor this afternoon to another vineyard that their sprayer went down. And so they're going to come government tractor and spray tomorrow. Yeah I love that. So it's yeah it's you know because you never you never know. It's it's again it goes back to reciprocation. Never know when you're going to. You'll need that favor. Yeah. Well and helping them spray isn't going to ruin your business. You know like and that's just the kind and right thing to do. Your home might be worth more than you think. Curious what your equity looks like. I'll run the numbers for you. No pressure, just clarity. Please reach out any time. Let's look at this together. If someone wanted to become a wine club member, what would they expect from their wine club? On club, it's a commitment of 12 bottles a year. We have a case club as well, which is a case of three cases a year. So we do three wine club shipments a year, one in the one in the fall, one in October, one in the winter months, February, and then one we just we just had a couple weeks ago in May. And that's it's a commitment of 12 bottles kind of our choosing. And that's an assortment of Pinot noir. We're drinking the Riesling. We just had actually had that in the wine club. Release Riesling. We can you can switch out ball. Some people don't like whites and people like only whites. So there's a lot of flexibility. It's two exclusive events. You know, we had a music weekend over the last week, Memorial Day weekend. So that was kind of free entry to the to to listen to music and drink wine. Yeah. For wine club members we'll do a blending party. That's for wine club members only. I mean they are, they are. They deserve the most because they are our best customers, if that makes sense. And they're ambassadors of the brand and so does that include tastings to like if they were to bring a guest or free tasting with a with a wine club membership, we also offer sometimes people just want to come up and have a glass of wine. So they come up. They can have a complimentary either a tasting or a complimentary glass of wine. Yeah, that's I think that's that's becoming more and more rare that, kind of that, that kind of perk and wine clubs. But it's something we'll hold true to. Well it is nice because like if you do belong to a wine club, you had their tasting unless they have a new year out or a different variety come out, you might have had their tasting multiple times. But if I want to bring a friend that's never had the tasting be like you, do the tasting. I'm just not going to have a glass on my favorite, you know, because yeah, which is amazing because then they still get to enjoy the full tasting, but I just get to have my favorite while they're doing it. Let's wrap up. You opened a red and I'm excited to taste. Yeah, I don't like maybe it's easier for you to pour. I know I always joke like the very first time we recorded, I was not as good at pouring or sipping with the mic, but it's become a talent. I've only spilled one bottle so far. I've spoken. I mean on the podcast. I felt wine in my life for sure. I spoke coffee is supposed to spill at all. I spent a lot of wine in my 28 years in my business. Yeah, I'm sure this wine is. I thought it'd be fun to have. It's the 1978 unrooted, so we have the fortune of making six barrels of this. Well, we were given six barrels as far as what the vineyard gave us. I bottled four of them as this wine that makes about 1200 bottles. It was called in the past, Particle Family Vineyard. I was really struggling with what to call this wine when we were renaming blocks and things, and I was walking around the corner with our venue manager, and for some reason, I wanted to tie a name to it because it already had a name. So I was like Belle Rogers. I was trying to come up with something and not have a pencil out walking around the corner with a ravine manager, and he goes, oh, and Aaron, here's a very special 13 rows of Pinot Noir. And I said, one, you're brilliant. You just named it just the genius is in the simplicity. This is what we now call our 13 rows block of Pinot Noir. Fresh, good texture, slight firmness that will give you on the finish. Yeah. So Smith in January, it smells great. And it tastes even better. We were fortunate to have such a beautiful vintage in the transition of 24. Just beautiful wines. Great texture, good volume, good yields, good. Good quality of fruit, good good health of the fruit. And then 25 I was 25 is a blockbuster. I honestly in my career I, I had never seen more more beautiful fruit. I mean the fruit was pristine but not only pristine in its cosmetic looks, but it's chemistry as well. So do you think that's because we had a little bit more mild like year all around? We didn't have as many fires or any kind of like craziness in 25. Goes back to cadence. But yeah, kind of got a nice summer, hot summer, but it got hot and then it cooled off, got hot and then it cooled off. And so it goes back to that, you know you know, got some ripening time and then it got a little time to rest. Well we didn't have like a major freeze. There's been like some years where we've had like all of a sudden in the Valley we don't get a ton of snow and ice. And then we've had some years where it's like, is this snow? We only get ice. What's happening? So yeah, 25 it felt like was kind of mild. We're early, just I guess kind of end up on that note is it will it'll be one of the earlier harvests on record. We had a very you know, we had really no winter per se. We had one little tiny snow event. Yeah. We had the warmest April on record. We hit 90 in April. So we're probably normally this this vineyard would historically would start around the 22nd, 23rd of September. We're probably going to start on the third. So we're about three weeks ahead of schedule, which is not a bad it's not a bad thing. It is what it is. But it on the fridge. It's ready. Exactly. You got to pick. So you said you have a company that comes out and helps you with harvest. Are they so is that hard to book since, like, you're kind of watching the fruit and waiting for it to be ready? Or do you kind of give them a heads up like we think we're going to pick around this time? I control what I can control. Yeah, totally. Kind of. I'm kind of a control freak in that way. Got it. So I but I can start to do that. I've done this long. You can start to do some basic math of when harvest is going to be. So I like to be in the front of the front of the line. So being how to be in front of the line is to get the information to who you need to first. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense in July. I'll already be kind of saying, hey alderman leaning towards September 3rd cause there's some numbers, you know, here from flowering to sorry from bud break to flowering is somewhere between 45 and 55 days. Okay. Average. Sure. And then from from flowering, from mid flowering until harvest is anywhere between 99 days and 104 days. Oh. So I can start to do some pretty, pretty good math again. It's not perfect what it means all the time. We can have a heatwave at the end of August and that means everything up by five days. Or it could cool off, but it's a good idea. But it is a general idea. Good idea. So I like to give him a forecast of I did well. 25 was my first vintage. I gave him a forecast in August. I go, this is kind of what I'm thinking, and I because I dug through all of John Petioles. We had a harvest book, and so I kind of knew the blocks. And when there seemed to be a consistency on how he harvested the blocks just based on how they ripened. So I was kind of made an educated guess of, of, of the series of how we would pick. And so, yeah. Have the pinnacles come to visit. Yeah. She's Betty's going to have her 60th birthday here. Oh I love that. Yeah. So no there they're, they're happy that it, it's the bottom was passed to somebody that kind of has the same dream they had. Sure. And wants to like keep the same kind of feel and vibe and everything. That's exactly right. You want to keep the vibe the same. Well and you have the relationship or like she wants to come however birthday here versus like, oh no, it's new owners. We don't really friendly passing baton and they still live local. They still live in West Salem. And yeah they, they they Betty pops up more than John, but they lifetime Wine Club members. They just honorary member. Yeah, that makes sense. Really fat discount. Always sure they deserve it. Yeah. And no it's been lovely. And John has 20 years of this vineyard and making wine. And so if I have a question or what would you do in this situation? I mean, I have my ideas, but you know, he did it on this property from these grapes for 20 years. So he's a he's a good sounding board. So I like to wrap up conversation sometimes with just a little piece of wisdom or advice for any business owner out there, whether they're in wine or real estate. The idea of you said you guys just pushed all your chips in, what gave you the confidence to do that? Or what would you tell somebody that are like, oh, I want to push all my chips in, but they're hesitating. I think that for me and for Tracy and I, I think we both had a skill set that we could bring to this business that could further this business to the next level. And we had the I guess, quickly we knew that we had the trust in each other, that we could do it. Yeah. I feel like a pretty dynamic duo from what she does in her day job and her connections to Salem and my kind of winemaking. Yeah. Is that. But it is a it is. You do have to jump. You do have to jump. That is you have to because that is a it's you know, that was, as they say, it's the number one factor of people not doing something is fear. Yeah. Well and that's just because of the saying no risk, no reward. Like sometimes you just have to be willing to take the risk and you have to be and and you have to be willing to fail. So we thought of that many times. Maybe this doesn't work, but we still get to wake up here. That's not the whole, you know, it's the, you know, and that's not the but you have to but you just gotta put your chips in the middle table. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to go, go if you, if you want to play, you got to play. If you're going to go, go. Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your wine with me. Sharing your story. If you're listening, please come check them out. The wine is delicious first and foremost, but the atmosphere is amazing and the views are breathtaking. Cheers to you! Thanks for the conversation. Yes, thank you for listening and watching and I'll see you next time. Cheers.