Founders' Stories: The Podcast

Adelsheim Vineyard
Founders' Stories: The Podcast

Conversations with David Adelsheim and the 10 founding wine families of Oregon’s North Willamette Valley. During each episode, David Adelsheim, Founder of Adelsheim Vineyard, will sit down with another early pioneer to recount the collaboration and formation of the Willamette Valley wine industry over the last 50 years. Join us as we pay homage to half a century of lofty dreams, pioneering spirits, and world-class wine! Visit adelsheim.com/50years to subscribe to our email list and be the first to know when new episodes are released.

  1. 06/02/2023

    Chapter 10: Ginny Adelsheim of Adelsheim Vineyard

    Our final interview in this series is with Ginny Adelsheim.  Ginny and I founded Adelsheim Vineyard in 1971 when we purchased our first property.  Or maybe it was in 1972 when we planted the first grapes there.  Or in 1976 when we first made a tiny amount of wine from those grapes.  Or in 1978 when we made our first commercial wine.  Well, you can see the problem a small estate winery has in coming up with an actual “founding date.”  However, we can certainly agree that Adelsheim Vineyard was established during a different era in America, when an idealization of going back to the land, a vision of a lifestyle focused on wine, and faith in one’s own abilities could stand-in for a business plan.  On October 5, 2020, Ginny and I talked on the terrace outside the home we built together in 1971, which sits on top of our original winery.

    1h 8m

  2. 04/01/2022

    Chapter 9: Joe & Pat Campbell of Elk Cove Vineyards

    On a Saturday afternoon in early 1975, Ginny and I were driving into Portland for shopping, a meal, or a family visit, when we came to a horrible realization. Having recently met Pat and Joe Campbell, we had been invited for a meal in the house they had just finished building on the site of their newly planted vineyard. We had been looking forward to comparing notes with the Campbells on building houses and planting vineyards. But we had spaced out the invitation, were too far from Elk Cove, and of course, there were no cell phones back then. Chagrinned, we called from a pay phone as soon as we could. Pat said, “No problem come tomorrow instead.” I remember, we had rabbit. We were able to chat with Pat and Joe on a sunny October 9, 2020, sitting in the vineyard they planted in the 1974.

    1h 3m

  3. 02/25/2022

    Chapter 8: Bill Blosser of Sokol Blosser Winery

    In April 1971, a mutual friend introduced us to Bill Blosser, who was a professor of planning at Portland State University. We met with him in his office and learned that he and his wife Susan had purchased property for a vineyard in the Dundee Hills. They invited us to their rented home at the foot of those hills for a May Day Party to introduce us to the wine community. We know the Letts were there, too. In my memory, it seemed like a much bigger party. But none of the other early growers remember being there. We interviewed Susan and Bill, one after another, in the Legacy Lounge of their new tasting room at their original vineyard site on October 7, 2020.

    42 min

  4. 02/23/2022

    Chapter 8: Susan Sokol Blosser of Sokol Blosser Winery

    In April 1971, a mutual friend introduced us to Bill Blosser, who was a professor of planning at Portland State University. We met with him in his office and learned that he and his wife Susan had purchased property for a vineyard in the Dundee Hills. They invited us to their rented home at the foot of those hills for a May Day Party to introduce us to the wine community. We know the Letts were there, too. In my memory, it seemed like a much bigger party. But none of the other early growers remember being there. We interviewed Susan and Bill, one after another, in the Legacy Lounge of their new tasting room at their original vineyard site on October 7, 2020.

    52 min
  5. Chapter 7: Myron Redford of Amity Vineyards

    12/07/2021

    Chapter 7: Myron Redford of Amity Vineyards

    Fresh out of college in the summer of 1966, Myron Redford and a couple of friends found themselves hitchhiking from Istanbul to London. They ended up in Bulgaria, looking for a hostel. Did I mention that Myron had an ulcer and had been told, no alcohol. But their guide was pouring shots of slivovitz and “no thanks” wasn’t going to work. The next morning, after a long night of slivovitz shots, Myron was fine. So much for the no alcohol policy. On October 7, 2020, we caught up with Myron at Amity Vineyards, overlooking the original vineyard he purchased from Jerry and Ann Preston in 1974.

    1h 20m
  6. Chapter 6: Dick & Nancy Ponzi of Ponzi Vineyards

    10/04/2021

    Chapter 6: Dick & Nancy Ponzi of Ponzi Vineyards

    In some ways, Nancy and Dick Ponzi’s entry into the business of wine in Oregon sounds very similar to ours. As Nancy wrote in her 2010 cookbook, it started in the nineteen-sixties. “If you weren’t alive then, it’s difficult to relate.” “Young people, such as Dick and me, were searching for roots and a path was presented by going back to the land, to basics and self-reliance.” I wanted to better understand how “back to the land” translated into starting one of Oregon’s foundational wineries. Nancy and Dick agreed to meet with us outside their original winery, next to the home they built, on October 14, 2020.

    2h 7m
  7. Chapter 5: Bill Fuller

    08/06/2021

    Chapter 5: Bill Fuller

    Bill Fuller had already worked in the lab at Italian Swiss Colony, gotten an MS in enology at U.C. Davis and had been the winemaker at Louis Martini Winery for 9 years when he helped evaluate vineyard sites for an investment banker in Oregon. They became partners in a 65-acre site northwest of Forest Grove in 1972, which they named Tualatin Vineyards. Bill moved his wife Virginia and family to Oregon that fall. The next year, he remodeled the house and converted the barn into a winery in time for their first vintage, using Washington grapes. We met up with Bill in the winery’s original barrel room on October 16, 2020. Visit adelsheim.com/50years to join in our 50th celebration, and subscribe to our email list to be the first to know when new episodes are released. Full-length hour-long conversations of Founders’ Stories will be available to listen to on Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google podcast. Or, you can watch full length interviews anytime through the Oregon Wine History Archive. (https://oregonwinehistoryarchive.org/...)

    1h 40m

  8. 06/29/2021

    Chapter 4: Ron and Marj Vuylsteke Part 2

    The fourth winery in our series is Oak Knoll, started by Ron and Marj Vuylsteke. Ron was working at Tektronix and teaching others to be home winemakers in the late 1960s. Marj was selling wine at WineArt and bringing up their six kids. Their friends encouraged them to start making wine commercially. So, in 1970 they purchased an old 40’x120’ cow barn. They were making fruit into wine later that summer. By 1973, they had added wine grapes and became immersed in the growing wine industry. We talked with Ron and Marj at that original property on November 12, 2020.

    35 min
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Conversations with David Adelsheim and the 10 founding wine families of Oregon’s North Willamette Valley. During each episode, David Adelsheim, Founder of Adelsheim Vineyard, will sit down with another early pioneer to recount the collaboration and formation of the Willamette Valley wine industry over the last 50 years. Join us as we pay homage to half a century of lofty dreams, pioneering spirits, and world-class wine! Visit adelsheim.com/50years to subscribe to our email list and be the first to know when new episodes are released.

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