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By JANET COOK
News staff writer
July 26, 2006
Dick and Christie Reed are nothing if
not adaptable.
The Reeds moved to the Hood River Valley from Chicago 15 years ago and
soon bought a farm in the mid-valley adjoining Highway 35. They had a
horse boarding and training business at Blue Chip Farm, and leased out
the accompanying pear orchard. It was all a far cry from the
rough-and-tumble neighborhoods of Dick’s youth on Chicago’s South
Side.
After watching the pear orchard being worked by others for a couple of
years, Dick decided he could do it himself.
“So we became farmers,” Christie said. A few years into that venture,
Dick was at the nursery one day and discovered some grapevines on
sale. So he did what any city guy-turned-farmer would do: He called
his friend Steve Bickford and asked if he should buy them.
Mount Hood Winery co-owners (from left)
Don Bickford, Dick Reed and Steve Bickford work together at the
winery’s bottling facility last week.
Steve, a fourth-generation pear farmer
who owns a 150-acre Pine Grove orchard with his brother Don and Don’s
wife Libby, is nothing if not enterprising. “Buy them,” he told Dick,
and began pulling out six acres of Newtown Pippin apple trees and
preparing to plant grapes.
That was six years ago. Today, the families’ joint venture, Mount Hood
Winery, produces more than 1,000 cases of pinot noir, pinot gris and
chardonnay annually from 15 acres of grapes. The winery’s tasting
room, a former fruit stand located on the Reeds’ farm on Highway 35,
just underwent a major remodel and addition and has seen visitor
numbers double since last year. And this summer, the winery will
introduce its first merlot, to be followed by a port later in the
year.
For the Reeds and Bickfords, the creation of Mount Hood Winery has
been a bit like raising a child with little prior knowledge about such
an endeavor. But, like all parents, each of them brought unique
knowledge and skill sets to the task that has helped the venture
flourish.
“We read a lot of books and asked a lot of questions of the right
people,” Steve Bickford said. Early on, they bought wine making kits
from Hood River Brewer’s Supply. They invested in the necessary
equipment — including giant fermenting vats, oak barrels from France
and, eventually, a bottling line.
The result of the Reeds’ and Bickfords’ quest for knowledge is a “full
production” winery.
“We do everything from start to finish,” Christie said — from planting
and growing the grapes to making the wine to bottling, marketing and
selling it.
So far, all of Mount Hood Winery’s wines have been made with grapes
grown by the Reeds and Bickfords. The winery’s upcoming merlot will be
made from grapes bought from vineyards in The Dalles.
“We’ve been able to purchase grapes from near neighbors,” Christie
said, “so we can easily add to the number of varietals we offer.” She
sees Mount Hood Winery expanding its offerings to six or seven
varietals, but not beyond. The Reeds and Bickfords plan on keeping
their winery a “small winery” —producing fewer than 5,000 cases per
year — and want to focus on producing quality wines and maintaining a
successful tasting room.
After all, for both the Reeds and Bickfords, making wine is just one
of their many endeavors. Along with both families’ orchard work, the
Bickfords also have a cold storage facility and a packing house to
run.
Like other Hood River Valley orchardists
who have in the last few years tentatively planted some grapes along
with their pears and apples, the Bickfords and Reeds have found that
the different crops work well together.
“For me, the grapes fill in some of the workload voids,” Steve said.
From pruning to harvesting, grapes come after the other fruit. “We can
move from one crop to the next.”
Christie Reed sees grapes complementing other local fruit in more ways
than one.
“The interesting thing about the wine industry in the Gorge is we are
all producing really nice wines from locally grown grapes and we have
the ability to grow on an already strong agriculture and tourism
base,” she said.
“As long as Gorge wineries can continue to produce quality wines, more
wineries in the area are an asset to everybody,” she added. “Wineries
are the quintessential combination of tourism and agriculture.” Just
as the Mount Hood Winery seems a quintessential combination of two
families’ adaptability and enterprise.
The Mount Hood Winery tasting room is located at 3189 Highway 35, 5½
miles south of Hood River. |
