My wine education started with a disaster.
It was around 2006, on a shuttle-bus wine tour through California’s Paso Robles region. At one stop, I fell hard for a bottle and paid more than I probably should have to bring it home. I never got to drink it. Somewhere on the drive back, we popped the SUV’s hatch at a rest stop and the unsecured bottle rolled out and shattered on the pavement. We did, at least, make it home with a haul of olive oil from a farm stop along the way — small consolation for wine lost too soon.
The real romance began after we landed in Oregon. Self-guided wine tours became a habit, and a couple of spots up on Airlie Road — Airlie Winery and Emerson Vineyards — became favorites early on. One of my favorite memories is sitting on Airlie’s patio with my parents, visiting from Nebraska, when the winery’s resident cat, Bob, climbed onto my dad’s lap and settled in for a nap. Great moment, better photo.
Just last weekend, at Sip and Stroll, I stopped by Airlie’s tasting station and it felt like catching up with an old friend. Emerson Vineyards is no longer around.
Since moving to Philomath, the wineries closer to home have taken over that role. A few weeks ago, my wife and I escaped for an afternoon at Harris Bridge Vineyard — a place I once wrote a story about — where we packed a picnic and played Scrabble for a few unhurried hours. Cardwell Hill Cellars and Lumos Wine out in the Wren vicinity are favorite stops. Compton Family Wines, which was called Spindrift Cellars when we first visited, is right here in town.
Some favorites are gone now. Pheasant Court Winery closed a few years ago, but one of my special memories tied to this town involves Marcia Gilson, who owned it with her husband, Charlie. Back in 2017, a group of Philomath women threw a baby shower for my wife when she was pregnant with our son, now 8. It was held at The Wine Vault, in the space on Main and 13th where Dirt Road Brewing sits today.
Long before any of that, wine even shows up in the story of how I met my wife. She was a reporter at the paper I edited in Libby, Montana, and one of the earliest photos I have of her is from a wine-tasting event, sampling pours alongside her mother. We still have the glasses from that night in our cupboard.
Nearly two decades after a bottle broke on a California parking lot, wine has become less about any one bottle and more about who I was sitting with when the cork came out.
2. Farmers market
The Philomath Farmers’ Market has settled into its Sunday rhythm in front of the library and police station, and while I don’t have solid numbers, it appears to be one of the market’s biggest years yet. This is its seventh season, and it’s grown from a handful of vendors back in 2020 to around 40 today — enough that organizers are running short on space.
The market’s growth caught the attention of KEZI 9 News, which was on site for opening day interviews back in May. Longtime Philomath resident Susan Faria told the station that the market has become something of a community anchor for her.
“I see my neighbors here, a lot of the vendors are neighbors,” she told KEZI. “There’s a feeling of community for me. It’s just a part of Philomath that keeps me living here.”
Beyond the produce and crafts, the market continues to run programs aimed at making fresh food more accessible, including a Double Up Food Bucks match for SNAP and EBT shoppers, and the Power of Produce Club, which gets kids sampling and voting on new fruits and vegetables each week.
That POP Club is also where organizers could use a hand — they’re actively looking for volunteers to help run it week to week. If you’ve got a Sunday morning free and enjoy watching kids try veggies, it might be worth reaching out to the market.
The Philomath Farmers’ Market runs every Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Oct. 18.
3. Cruel deception
Oregon State Police and the FBI are investigating a report of men impersonating law enforcement officers who stopped, detained and assaulted a driver east of Woodburn last week — a case that should alarm anyone paying attention to the climate of fear already surrounding immigration enforcement in Oregon.
According to OSP, the victim was driving on Highway 211 about 5 miles east of that community on July 17 when a vehicle with red and blue emergency-style lights pulled up behind them. Believing they were being stopped by police, the victim pulled onto a gravel turnout. Two men got out — one carrying a rifle — identified themselves as “ICE,” forced the victim from their car, searched them and put them in the back seat of the suspects’ vehicle. A third person acting as a “guard” assaulted the victim during the roughly 15-20 minutes they were held. The suspects wore tactical vests marked “POLICE” and carried badges reading “Police,” but their SUV had no visible plates. Federal authorities have confirmed the men were not actual officers.
The victim was later treated for injuries and, while at the hospital, began receiving texts from someone claiming to be a law firm offering representation — texts that investigators also want to hear about.
This isn’t a prank or a misunderstanding. Someone strapped on a fake badge, pointed a rifle at a stranger and used the uniform to terrorize them — in a region where real immigration raids have already left people afraid to answer their own doors.
For more information on the case, see OSP’s full news release.
(Brad Fuqua is publisher/editor of the Philomath News. He can be reached at News@PhilomathNews.com).
Brad – so enjoyed your story about wine in this weekend’s edition and thought your last sentence ‘ wine has become less about any one bottle and more about who I was sitting with when the cork came out.’ is so true.
As always, I enjoy reading about your thoughts on Philomath and the people that live here – I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else! Marcia