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Reviews
AT HOME IN THE VINEYARD: CULTIVATING A WINERY, AN INDUSTRY, AND A LIFE
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by Susan Sokol Blosser
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| University of California Press, Berkeley, 2006. Illustrations, photographs, maps, tables, index. 236 pages. $24.95 cloth. |
| Barely forty years ago, the Dundee hills in Yamhill County — today Oregon's winegrowing heart — were dotted with orchards of prunes, cherries, and filberts, and the closest thing to a wine tasting for most folks was a thimbleful of Grandma's blackberry cordial after Thanksgiving dinner. That all changed when a group of mostly young, mostly urban idealists fresh out of viticulture school came to Yamhill County and planted cuttings of Vitis vinifera, giving birth to an upstart industry that changed the face of rural Oregon in a single generation. |
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Susan Sokol Blosser was there from the beginning. She tells of the early days of Oregon's wine industry from a distinct perspective — that of cofounder of one of the first Oregon wineries to gain international recognition for premium-quality pinot noirs. With humor and candor, Sokol Blosser recounts the struggles and triumphs of herself, her then-husband Bill Blosser, and their fellow pioneers: David and Diana Lett (Eyrie Vineyards), Chuck and Shirley Coury (Charles Coury Vineyards), Dick and Nancy Ponzi (Ponzi Vineyards), Dick and Kina Erath (Erath Vineyards), David and Ginny Adelsheim (Adelsheim Vineyards), Joe and Pat Campbell (Elk Cove Vineyards), and others — young couples chasing a dream at a time when "the whole industry fitted into anyone's living room" (p. 33). They had families and day jobs. They had little capital and big ambitions. Richard Sommer planted Oregon's first post-Prohibition wine grapes near Roseburg in 1961. By 1980, Oregon was producing wines as good as those of France — sometimes even better. |
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Sokol Blosser and her husband bought their first vineyard, an abandoned Willamette Valley prune orchard, almost on a whim. Her description of their adventures, enlivened by sometimes rueful hindsight, perfectly evokes the back-to-the-land spirit coupled with carefree expansiveness that so sums up the times. "People had been making wine for centuries," she writes. "How hard could it be?" (p. 5). |
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Over the next two decades Sokol Blosser, her husband, and their extended family learned just how hard it could be. They poured their hearts and their money into the business. After years of struggle, Sokol Blosser became one of a handful of internationally famous Oregon vineyard/wineries, and Susan Sokol Blosser evolved from earth mother to corporate executive, jetting around the country and schmoozing with owners of exclusive restaurants and wine shops. Her story celebrates the success of Sokol Blosser and of the wine industry as a whole, but its author is candid about the toll it took on her marriage and family relationships. |
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For this student of history, the fascination of the Oregon wine explosion lies in its interplay with other cultural currents, namely the Baby Boom cult of rural domesticity, the environmental movement, and the heady progressive politics of the Tom McCall years. In particular, the tie between the pioneer industry and Oregon's pioneering land-use legislation, which Sokol Blosser calls "synchronicity," would seem to be much more than that (p. 32). Exploring the influence of the wine industry on the development of land-use planning in Oregon would be an interesting exercise. |
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At Home in the Vineyard gives a lively account of the milestones and critical moments in the industry's growth, but it does not claim to be a scholarly history. The book is a memoir, and among its considerable strengths are the author's engaging personality and her forthrightness about her professional and personal struggles. It is not without shortcomings. Susan Sokol Blosser had a unique perspective on the upheaval that the wine industry brought to Oregon's rural communities. Her memoir would be stronger if she had used her life story to reflect on that transformation more deeply. |
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While still a newcomer, she writes, she was invited by a kind neighbor to join the Unity Ladies Club, which was composed of wives of the county's wealthy and successful farmers. "We sat around and chatted, sipping coffee or sweet punch out of flowery china teacups, and eating primly off the hostess's best china" (p. 24). I was dying to hear the author's thoughts about the similarities and differences between herself and her new neighbors. How did these women, rooted in rural traditions, respond to the arrival of an educated, outspoken, Democratic, feminist entrepreneur whose company produced an alcoholic beverage? How did she regard them? Her choice of the word "primly" may offer a clue, but she saw "no reason to think our world would be any different in years to come" (p. 25). Indeed, she was dismayed to see the names of some of her Unity Club acquaintances on a petition to deny Sokol Blosser a winery permit, presumably because they categorically disapproved of alcohol. "No one had talked to me about their concerns," she writes. "They had just signed" (p. 36). |
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Because of the relative lack of soul-searching in this book (which some readers may find refreshing), it tends to miss such opportunities, and sometimes it reads as a chronicle of events rather than as a narrative. But this is a minor complaint. Turning a life into a dramatic narrative is a tricky business requiring, among other things, a contemplative habit of mind that may not come naturally to Sokol Blosser, who is clearly a woman of action. Her book is an engaging read and a good place to start if you are interested in Oregon wine and its larger social and economic story. |
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| Gail Wells
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| Corvallis, Oregon |
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