[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Kansas_435-8809-1024×683-1.webp” title_text=”Kansas_435-8809-1024×683-1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n
To paraphrase a riff from Kansas City native son Calvin Trillin, the best winemakers in Oregon are, of course, from Kansas City. Not all of them; only the top four or five.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t the first exodus of talent from Kansas and Missouri. Hundreds of thousands of people followed the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley in the mid-1800s. They settled the wild Oregon territory with hard work, livestock and crops. Unfortunately, the grapevines they brought along produced fruit better suited to making preserves than Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n
In recent decades, a new round of expats arrived from places like WaKeeney, Kansas, and Des Peres, Missouri. They brought with them the same values and work ethic held dear by their prairie ancestors. These new settlers infused the valley with Midwest gusto as they made world-class wines. Here are just a few of their stories.<\/p>\n
Without a Kansas cowboy frozen to his saddle, Oregon likely wouldn\u2019t have one of its largest and most successful wineries.<\/p>\n
Edd King was riding the range on a brutally cold night near Jetmore, Kansas, when he became frozen to his saddle. Unable to get loose, King rode to a distant farmhouse, where one of the daughters who assisted him ended up marrying him.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n King\u2019s son, Ed King Jr., graduated from Kansas State University and went on to create King Radio Corp., a multinational avionics powerhouse. King Jr.\u2019s son, yet another Ed King, graduated from the University of Kansas in 1972 and then attended law school at the University of Missouri to give his family a sense of collegiate balance.<\/p>\n After practicing law for a few years in Alaska, King felt the need to return to the family business, so he went looking for an MBA degree. King settled on the University of Oregon in 1982 \u2014 another lucky frozen saddle type of break for the state\u2019s wine industry.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After selling the family company in 1985, King, his father, and other family members built the family\u2019s namesake winery. The winery sits on a rural hillside in the Lorane Valley, just south of Eugene. King says the former hay farm, with its horses and dusty gravel roads, reminded him of Kansas.<\/p>\n Even though he presides over a winery making 350,000 cases of wine a year, King finds time to head to Kansas City to visit his sister in Loch Lloyd. Hitting Arthur Bryant\u2019s for barbecue and a Royals game are favored diversions. \u201cI grew up two doors down from Ewing Kauffman\u2019s home, so that\u2019s a family tradition,\u201d King says.<\/p>\n Brad McLeroy is a Kansas City beverage blue blood. His father and uncles were partners with Ed Moody in the original Gomer\u2019s, the gas station that evolved into the legendary liquor store.<\/p>\n McLeroy got his start in the industry at an early age by sweeping the floors, emptying the trash and breaking down cardboard boxes at Gomer\u2019s. After graduating from Center High School in 1986, McLeroy studied business at the University of Colorado in Boulder. But why not go to KU or K-State? \u201cI really liked to ski,\u201d McLeroy says. \u201cAnd yes, I graduated in four years.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduation McLeroy went back to the family business, and he also found time to slip away to Oregon to work harvests. He was hooked. After a short stint in 1993 at Portland\u2019s Western Culinary Institute, McLeroy returned to Kansas City and, with the purchase of Broadway Liquors & Deli, he accumulated a war chest. He cleared out their massive inventory of pint bottles and glass pipes and turned it into Gomer\u2019s Midtown.<\/p>\n McLeroy\u2019s store became famous in Kansas City for its wine classes, unlicensed supper club and selection of wines from Europe and the Pacific Northwest. In 2000, McLeroy sold his store and used the proceeds to buy land near Newberg, Oregon, plant a vineyard and build a house and winery.<\/p>\n McLeroy\u2019s mother still lives in the Kansas City home where he grew up. \u201cI\u2019m proud of Kansas City,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s so livable, and you don\u2019t see tree-lined streets like this everywhere. I get back there a few times a year to work the market and visit my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n What else does he do in Kansas City? \u201cWe would go to Martin City for fried chicken and barbecue when I was a kid, but now I like to go to Jasper\u2019s or visit with chef Michael Smith at Farina,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s also hard to beat riding the streetcar to the Arts District.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Scott Shull of Raptor Ridge Winery in Newberg, Oregon, can trace family origins to Coffey County, where his parents once lived near Burlington, Kansas, and his maternal grandparents were homesteaders.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom liked to tell us when we were kids that she could still hitch a team of horses,\u201d Shull says. \u201cMy parents were definitely Kansas country kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Shull\u2019s parents were both University of Kansas graduates who ended up in the suburbs of St. Louis after World War II. That\u2019s where Shull grew up, graduating from Kirkwood High School in 1975. \u201cI still love visiting my sister in St. Louis,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to beat eating at Rigazzi\u2019s on the Hill and strolling through Shaw\u2019s Garden.\u201d<\/p>\n Even then, he still spent summers working his Uncle Ike Hatch\u2019s farm in eastern Kansas. \u201cYou never, ever forget the experience of baling hay in Kansas in August,\u201d Shull says.<\/p>\n Shull bucked family tradition and went to the University of Missouri to study journalism. Fortunately, this did not cause trouble at family dinners. \u201cThe only sport in our family was baseball and the only team was the Cardinals,\u201d he says. \u201cKansas and Missouri weren\u2019t good at baseball, so there were never any problems.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The pursuit of photo journalism and extracurricular seminars at Booches and Harpo\u2019s quickly turned into an electrical engineering degree when Shull started thinking about earning a living. Degree in hand, he drove an old Ford Galaxy to Oregon to take a job at Intel.<\/p>\n Shull says his Midwestern upbringing helped him maneuver his way from Intel to starting a winery with his wife, Annie. \u201cIt was hard to scratch out an existence on a farm,\u201d he says. You couldn\u2019t just go around the corner to the Home Depot. You had to have your own forge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Because of that, my family had a favorite word: stick-to-itiveness. If you start a job, finish it. I still see that in folks from where I grew up.\u201d<\/p>\n Not many winemakers can claim they were managing editor of the Daily Kansan, the University of Kansas student newspaper. Then again, Jerry Sass\u2019 path to winemaking isn\u2019t exactly typical.<\/p>\n Jerry Sass is a native New Yorker, but he earned his Midwest stripes with a master\u2019s degree from KU. Sass studied in Lawrence for two years in the late 1970s before heading to the Pacific Northwest for a twenty-four-year career in journalism.<\/p>\n \u201cI got enough of Lawrence to know I loved Kansas,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was nothing like the stereotypes. Everything about Kansas speaks to me in a contemplative and peaceful way.\u201d He quickly grinned before adding, \u201cI bet no one\u2019s ever talked to you about Kansas like this before.\u201d<\/p>\n Sass confesses he spent too much time at the\u00a0Daily Kansan<\/i>\u00a0to have a \u201cwell-rounded\u201d Lawrence experience. He does however, have fond memories of the occasional Friday night spent at the Rock Chalk Bar and Dirty Herbie\u2019s.<\/p>\n Although she is also a Jayhawk, Sass met his wife, Susan Gage, at the copy desk for\u00a0The Oregonian<\/i>\u00a0in Portland. They purchased a grass seed farm near Salem, Oregon, where they planted Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris vines in the late 1980s and early 1990s.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was worried that making wine wasn\u2019t important, but my dad used to make wine in the garage and he told me wine has a sacred quality because it goes with food, family and fellowship,\u201d Sass says.<\/p>\n Sass also credits Kansas for instilling in him that same work ethic Scott Shull described. \u201cHard work is the foundation of everything in Kansas,\u201d Sass says. \u201cThere\u2019s also a set of family values that guides how I treat my customers. I brought all of that with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Boyd Teegarden is described by Scott Shull as \u201cour token Wildcat winemaker.\u201d And unlike other winemakers mentioned here, Teegarden\u2019s family pedigree is as pure as snow on Mount Sunflower.<\/p>\n \u201cMy whole family went to Kansas State University, so we all get along,\u201d Teegarden says.<\/p>\n Teegarden, a proud Winnetonka High School Griffin, grew up on his family\u2019s soybean farm in the East Bottoms of KCMO. \u201cIt was such hard work I vowed when I went off to K-State that I would never have a garden, much less work on a farm again,\u201d he says. \u201cNow look at me. My mom laughed when I planted my own vineyard.\u201d<\/p>\n Teegarden got his first taste of the beverage industry waiting tables in Aggieville at the now-defunct Dark Horse. Kite\u2019s Bar and Grill and Annie Mac\u2019s Parlor were other favored hangouts. When he goes back to Manhattan (the Kansas Manhattan, that is) each year to attend a Wildcat football game, he celebrates at the Wine Dive and Kitchen.<\/p>\n After college, Teegarden landed a wine distribution job with E&J Gallo. The job took him to Colorado, Florida and Portland. \u201cAfter being based in south Florida, I appreciated Oregon,\u201d Teegarden says. \u201cI could go back to saying \u2018hi\u2019 to people on the street, just like in Kansas and Missouri. You could even enjoy all four seasons here, although they aren\u2019t as extreme as back home.\u201d<\/p>\n Oddly enough, given Oregon\u2019s stellar mushroom reputation, the one thing Teegarden really misses from home is morels. \u201cEvery spring, we\u2019d go up in the hills near the farm and bring back grocery bags filled with the most delicious morels I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d Teegarden says.<\/p>\n Roots Wine Co. is the marriage of two University of Kansas alums from disparate backgrounds: Hilary Berg from the very Catholic Kapaun Mt. Carmel High School in Wichita and Chris Berg from the very Nordic William Fremd High School in Even though they graduated from KU seven years apart, the couple managed to find each other at Papa Keno\u2019s, where Chris played with his band, Acoustic Juice. After six months of dating, Hilary joined Chris in Oregon when his parents purchased a manufacturing plant in Tualatin and a timber farm Chris helped turn that farm into a vineyard with plantings in 1999 and 2000. In March 2003, the couple married at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence. It was the most Jayhawk wedding ever, as guests abandoned the dance floor for the hotel bar to watch Kansas book a trip to the Final Four by beating Arizona.<\/p>\n These days they live with young son Theo on their wine property, where Chris makes the wine while Hilary edits\u00a0The Oregon Wine Press<\/i>.<\/p>\n The Bergs take Theo to Wichita every October so he can trick-or-treat with his cousins. \u201cI love Wichita,\u201d Chris says. \u201cTheir art museum is fantastic, and the Wichita Zoo puts the Portland Zoo to shame.\u201d Other Berg Wichita pastimes include bulk shopping at the Nifty Nut House and visiting what Hilary describes as \u201cthe creepy old Cow Town Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bergs also appreciate the way the Midwest shaped their worldviews. \u201cI don\u2019t look down on or make fun of where people are from,\u201d Hilary says. \u201cI appreciate other places because people live there and I want to know their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Partridge, Kansas, population two hundred and forty-eight, is the last place you would expect to produce a big-time Oregon winery owner like Elaine Owen.<\/p>\n Owen, who owns Lady Hill with her husband, Jerry, describes Partridge as \u201ca one blinking light kind of place that instills a small-town sense of fearlessness in you.\u201d When her high school closed, fourteen-year old Owen was required to get a special farm permit to drive her Plymouth Aero forty-four miles round-trip each day to attend school in Haven. If you have ever traveled central Kansas back roads in the winter, you understand fearlessness.<\/p>\n Owen grew up on a farm just outside Partridge. It was an idyllic place where kids fished for sun perch and shot Daisy Red Ryders at the road sign commemorating the Partridge Quails\u2019 1954 basketball championship.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the heart of the heartland,\u201d she says. \u201cI know it\u2019s not everybody\u2019s cup of tea, but we love it, and we love taking our nine kids back to visit my family for Christmas. The people are ordered at a more humane pace.\u201d Owen describes traveling with eleven people as an \u201cextreme sport.\u201d She says finding an Amish AirBnB near Partridge that could handle all of them was a lifesaver.<\/p>\n Owen is a graduate of the University of Kansas, and happy reminders surround her at Lady Hill Winery. First, there is her husband, who attended the same Pearson Integrated Humanities Program at KU she did before he moved home to finish at Oregon State University. They were introduced by a mutual friend (who happened to be Elaine\u2019s boyfriend at the time).<\/p>\n Reminder number two is Lady Hill\u2019s winemaker, Dan Duryee, a former semi-professional soccer player from WaKeeney, the \u201cChristmas City of the Plains.\u201d In addition to making Lady Hill\u2019s wine, Duryee also makes custom wines for Miles Schnaer of Crown Toyota in Lawrence and for former Jayhawk hooper Mario Chalmers.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, Owen has stars on the roof of the winery tasting room and sunflowers on a few of her wine labels to remind her of Kansas\u2019 sky and soil.<\/p>\n Is the Willamette Valley better off for having a band of Kansas and Missouri folks running around? Yes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a kinder and gentler place because of us,\u201d Brad McLeroy quipped.<\/span><\/p>\n Elaine Owen even proposed making the Willamette wine tent bigger.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI absolutely believe the Willamette Valley is better off for having Kansans and Missourians here,\u201d she says. \u201cYou can even add a few Oklahomans for good measure.\u201d<\/p>\n *Michael Alberty writes about wine for\u00a0<\/i>The Oregonian\u00a0newspaper in Portland, Oregon. He grew up in Olathe and still bleeds a heady mix of Royals blue, Chiefs red and Arthur Bryant\u2019s original sauce.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not many winemakers can claim they were managing editor of the Daily Kansan, the University of Kansas student newspaper. Then again, Jerry Sass\u2019 path to winemaking isn\u2019t exactly typical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1924"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1931,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1924\/revisions\/1931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1924"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sasswinery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=1924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ayres Vineyard (est. 2002)<\/h2>\n
Raptor Ridge Winery (est. 1995)<\/h2>\n
Sass Winery (est. 1996)<\/h2>\n
Natalie\u2019s Estate Winery (est. 1999)<\/h2>\n
Roots Wine Co. (est. 2002)<\/h2>\n
Palatine, Illinois.<\/p>\n
near Yamhill.<\/p>\nLady Hill Winery (est. 2011)<\/h2>\n