Fifty/Fifty
By Sophia McDonald
In 2021, two of the Willamette Valley’s original wineries — Adelsheim Vineyard in Newberg and Sokol Blosser Winery in Dayton — are commemorating their golden anniversaries. Their influential leaders share some reflections on their past, talk about what they’re doing in the present and provide a glimpse into the future and, if the Oregon industry is so fortunate, the next 50.
David Adelsheim was in the Army during the Vietnam War; however, he was stationed 2000 miles away in Korea. There received his first serious introduction to the genteel subject of wine. “I had a captain who was from Puerto Rico who really knew wine,” he said. “We didn’t taste wine a lot, but from time to time, he would find a bottle, and he would talk about it in a much more serious way than I was used to hearing about wine.”