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.
ALISON SOKOL BLOSSER
Copresident/CEO, Sokol Blosser Winery
December 2016
Acknowledgments
The 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 new emphasis on food and wine goes to my editor, Jennifer Newens, for making helpful suggestions and giving me critical guidance. Special thanks to Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society, for encouraging me to continue my story and introducing me to Jen.
My husband, Russ Rosner, is the best copyeditor I know and made sure the final draft was grammatically correct before it was submitted. During the many months I spent writing in our home office, he gave me the gift of space and time so I could work, uninterrupted by dogs, cats, or chickens.
Ultimately, of course, I alone am responsible for what I have chosen to include and what I have left out, for the writing, and the interpretation of events, but my whole family played a part. Russ, my former husband Bill Blosser, and our children Nik, Alex, and Alison read drafts, gave helpful suggestions, and wrote sidebars giving their perspective. Kudos to Alison, my amazing daughter who, between running the winery, traveling for business, having a baby, and raising a family, took time to write the foreword.
The winery staff was uniformly supportive, especially Caitlin Sessa and Michael Kelly Brown, who helped source the best photos to include. Michael also wrote a sidebar for me and helped with recipes. Rachael Woody, head of Linfield College’s Oregon Wine History Archive, and her students found material I needed from the Sokol Blosser papers whenever I asked.
I am grateful to friends Brad Cloepfil, Eugenia Keegan, Michaela Rodeno, Marie Simmons, and Heidi Yorkshire, who took the time to write sidebars for me, giving their perspective on events.
Thanks to the chefs who worked with me to provide recipes to recapture those memories, crafting them to be reproduced at home. In addition to my former and current husbands, Bill and Russ, both accomplished cooks, I am grateful to chef friends Jack Czarnecki, Nick Peirano and Joan Drabkin, Henry Kibit, Jody Kropf, and Marie Simmons. It was a special pleasure to include a recipe from Sokol Blosser’s chef, Henry Kibit, who has become a critical part of the winery team. Marie Simmons, whose cookbooks I have used for years, not only provided me with recipes, but tested others. Anne Nisbet also performed valuable help as a recipe tester.
I hope The Vineyard Years gives readers insight into the sense of place and closeness to nature that having a vineyard entails; the joy as well as the angst of a family developing a vineyard, a winery, and an industry; and the flavor of a profession so dedicated to the enjoyment of drinking and eating well.
L’Chaim and Bon Appétit!
SUSAN SOKOL BLOSSER
Dayton, Oregon
December 2016
CHAPTER ONE
Mac & Cheese Days
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 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