The Grapes Ripen, and Bears Stir

It's harvest season on the farm.

It’s that giddy season on our farm where harvest is almost upon us.

The Pinot Noir grapes on Kristof Farms have turned a rich purple and are growing more sweet and juicy, though they won’t be fully ripe for a few more weeks. Aren’t they gorgeous?

The Chardonnay grapes are verdant green, as they don’t change color, but they are plump and growing delectably juicy. They usually mature a whisker before the Pinot Noir. Here’s the Chardonnay section in the vineyard:

Over in the apple orchard, the cider apples are turning red and flavorful. This is our bias showing, but the kind of apples you see in a grocery store are simple, sweet things, while our cider varieties like Kingston Black or Redfield are infinitely more complex: They have tannins, acids and a rich complexity, so they’re not as good for munching on but are perfect for a hard cider. It’s easier and cheaper to make hard cider from grocery-variety apples that have bruises and can’t be sold, but we cider snobs think that’s like making wine from table grapes. Nothing against grape juice, but it’s not Pinot Noir!  Here’s Sheryl in the orchard checking out the apples:

This is also the period before harvest when plenty can go wrong. Forest fires are probably the biggest thing we worry about, for smoke in the air could seep into the grapes and taint the wine (as happened in many places in 2020). Climate change is changing viticulture with drought and fires, and while the greatest challenges are probably in California and Burgundy, we’re not immune in Oregon. We’re lucky that our elevation at Kristof Farms, 670 feet, is slightly higher than most vineyards and means we’re a bit cooler than most. Drought also hasn’t affected our sliver of the Willamette Valley as much as it has other parts of the West Coast. Over time, climate change will probably push optimal wine grape production to the north and to slightly higher elevations (we hope that means to our Yamhill Carlton AVA!).

We’re also a bit nervous about bears and elk, for both can do damage to a vineyard and orchard. Last year we had four bears pile through the farm during harvest, and there’s a herd of more than 100 elk only about a mile away. But so far the elk have stayed away, and fortunately the bears seem to be more interested in the wild blackberries that are everywhere and ripen and sweeten just a bit before the grapes and apples. Here’s a cameo of a bear on our wildlife camera:

By the way, it’s not only the bears who like our blackberries. Here’s our Chief Security Officer, Connie Kuvasz Kristof, dining on blackberries:

We don’t mind sharing some of our grapes and apples with the local deer, but we think they’re greedy and we’ve had difficulties negotiating with them. So our pal Morgan Garay at Results Partners, which helps us manage the vineyard, created a one-way door in our deer fence, modeled on a doggie door in a house. The idea was that the deer would be able to push the door out but not re-enter.

At first this was a disaster. The deer inside the fence (we’re not sure how they got in) were idiots and couldn’t figure out how to use the door to get out. Look at this doe gazing at the gate and not able to figure that it just needs to wriggle through:

But at the same time the deer on the outside proved to be geniuses, and they beat the system and managed to wriggle the wrong way through the gate and come in. We had the worst of both worlds: Deer were coming in through the gate but not leaving:

But then our friendly cougar decided to come in on our side of the fence, and the deer decided it was a priority to leave. Look into the eyes of the cougar, as she checked out our wildlife camera, and you can see why:

Thus incentivized to move on, the deer scrambled to figure out how to use the exit properly. Our wildlife cameras now show the deer using the gate to leave (and also the cougar using it). We’ve always believed that incentives can make us all smarter, and that evidently applies to deer as well as humans.

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Our other big news: We now have a tasting room. People keep asking us how they can come and taste our wines and ciders, so we’ve partnered with the Carlton Winemakers Studio, 801 N. Scott St., Carlton, OR 97111 (open 11am to 5pm each day, no reservations necessary). You can taste and buy our wines, alongside others. (Try asking Nick George, who runs the tasting room, if he has some of our signed bottles left.) Here’s The Studio tasting room, with Nick George at center:

We love the Studio because it symbolizes the reinvention of our area. When Nick was growing up here in the 1970s, Carlton was an old logging town that was struggling. Its five sawmills closed one after the other, and the Carlton Lake that had served the mills was drained. The town’s biggest business, a glove factory that had paid good union wages, closed down in 1993 and moved its production line to Costa Rica. But the people of Carlton had the vision to embrace a new business model, tourism built around the nascent wine industry, and that revived Carlton; it’s now a thriving town with restaurants, tasting rooms, shops, B&Bs and more. And we love the fact that the Studio tasting room is on the site of one of the old saw mills. This is what the economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction.

To celebrate our partnership with the Studio, we’re having a party at the tasting room on Saturday, Sept. 21 from 1 to 4pm. Sheryl and Nick will be there, so come by and try a flight of wines ($30) and raise a glass to a great harvest and to the bears sticking to the blackberries!

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Like many winemakers, we have a wine club (and a cider club), and we’ll be shipping to members before the November election and then arranging our online salon with members to discuss whatever’s on your minds – wine, bears, the new president, farming, the Middle East, whatever. These have always been lots of fun, and they’ve been a way for us to promote the idea that wine and cider can create community and social capital.

Our experiment making wine and cider on the side, even as we continue our busy careers, has had its crises and challenges. And if we have a forest fire in the next few weeks or if 100 elk descend on our farm, you’ll hear our screams of vexation wherever on the planet you are. But this has also been a thrill. It has been a wonderful three-generation family adventure, bringing in matriarch Jane Kristof at 92 as well as her grandchildren, with everyone playing a role. Here are Jane and Nick in front of the orchard, with Connie:

We haven’t figured everything out, and we’re still mostly selling direct-to-consumer on our website, but we have been increasing our presence through restaurants and shops. Better yet, we’re thrilled with the quality of the wine and cider. Our cider keeps winning national and international awards, and The Oregonian wine critic called our Pinot Noir “a perfect introduction” while another wine critic termed our Chardonnay “out of this world.” And we’re figuring out, bit by bit, how to manage the deer and how to provide our wine and cider for classy dinners, book clubs and banquets around the country. Our wine and cider club has been a joy to engage with. We have the tasting room in Carlton. We’re getting there, we’re learning, and it has been a blast. Thanks for joining our adventure.