To all our Friends, Comrades, and Countrymen; These are certainly trying times to live in. The corona virus has upended life in these, our wondrous United States, as we know it and no one knows for how long. While the emergency hasn’t had an effect on the vineyard proper it obviously will have an impact on the opening of our tasting room. We have not, as of yet, decided to cancel the 9th of May opening, but one should probably assume that we will have to at least postpone it to later in the summer. We will abide by all the recommendations provided by the Center for Disease Control, not just for our safety (we are admittedly old), but that of our customers as well. There is nothing that could be more important to us than that. It is hard, on such a [...]

The grapes are picked, the wine is in the barrel, and the vineyard is put to bed. And so ends another vintage at Dragon’s Vineyard and Wine Company. It is time for, after such a frenetic month, a good rest. We picked three times this year. The first was in the middle of September for the famous Dragon’s Kiss Rose` and twice in October: once for our award winning Dragon’s Lair Pinot Noir and a second time for a brand new venture. There will be more coming on that at a later date. For the first two picks we hired a professional crew who came and picked in a most efficient and proficient manner; they actually ran up and down the rows. It was fairly exhausting just watching them. But run they did, in good humor and chatting in a friendly manner between [...]

Could there be any location on this disreputable orb as lush, as verdant, as compellingly beautiful as the Willamette valley in June? I don’t think so and I get around. In the last newsletter we talked about ending out March with pruning and tie downs and the chores April and May would bring. This year bud break started around the 10th of April and was complete by the 24th. The month of May, the entire month, found us shoot-thinning. The painter JMW Turner exclaimed, “The Sun is God!” immediately before expiring. Spring in the vineyard could lead one to agree with him. The voluminous vegetation vigorously vies vertically in its voyage to that veritable Vesuvius viewed by one and all: The Sun. This is probably a good place for some disclosure. Your correspondent is an absolute sucker for alliteration. I surmise that some [...]