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Ridgecrest Vineyards: a sense of place, a sense of time


Harry Peterson-Nedry

I don’t remember well time before Ridgecrest. I was 32, our marriage was four years old, and our children were three and less-than-one year old when it began. I was future focused then, a little less-so now. I could picture grapes and wines and lifestyle in the blonde pastureland that I rushed back from vacation to examine. I have never had a problem with vision and making it happen, whatever it took. If only all aspects of life were as controllable as vineyard projects. (Read more about the Ridgecrest Vineyards in our About Us section.)

Our first vines have just unfurled their leaves for the 18^th time. My daughter who crawled on blankets and needed to be changed and fed and carried all the time when we pounded layout stakes, now needs only college travel money. Christmas trees are no longer small enough to cut, no longer important to cut. Weekends used to be spent outside, working, sweating at the top of the row, proud, calling for the kids exploring in the woods, leaning on the tractor tire talking to Norm. The camping spots where Johnsrud and I smoked cigars, drank wine and dreamed big have long-since been swallowed by Pinot gris plants. Judy and I have been swallowed by life. Ian is still exploring.


Ridgecrest from the air -- Ribbon Ridge is volcanic, with sedimentary soils collected on its flanks. (View to the Northwest)

The land we bought from Norm and Betty Chapman. They were younger then, but they haven’t changed a bit. The land has been in Betty Chapman’s family for well over 100 years. Their farm is a Century farm, their house is historic and Betty’s grandfather was crazy. Or at least his neighbors thought so when he planted the top of Ribbon Ridge on the western end of the Chehalem Ridge to walnut and prune orchard in the late 1800’s. It seems new ideas are often greeted with ridicule. It took the Columbus Day storm of 1962 ? (an event of mythical proportions around here, a happening by which people calibrate their lives) to convert the orchard to pasture and prepare it for vineyard.


	First Chehalem Crew

We planted our first vines in spring of 1982, planting 37 acres of Pinot noir, Pinot gris, Chardonnay and Gamay noir over the next 8 years on both sides of Ribbon Ridge Road. We have bought and sold adjacent properties and intend to begin planting our first Dijon clones on the ridge next spring several hundred yards from Ridgecrest at a site we purchased from our neighbors the Simmons and call Wind Ridge Vineyard. All of this property is of the Willakenzie soil series, a transition soil between volcanic, basalt-based origin and sea-deposited sandstone sedimentary origin. It has proved to be a good soil for both reds and whites, giving black fruited, brambly, cassis character to Pinot noir and intense nutty and stone-fruit driven whites. The elevation is 450-600 feet sloping gently south, with breaks east and west from the crest of the ridge. As the land mass separating the Willamette and Tualatin Valleys, this ridge gets good breezes for disease control and temperature moderation.

We are convinced this is one of the best vineyard sites in Oregon. Since we pioneered Ribbon Ridge others have agreed with its potential, Beaux Freres, Brickhouse, Adelsheim/Loacker, Autumn Wind and Whistling Ridge planting there since. We have a true sense of place, or terroir, in this ridge’s wines.

Unlike the old days, Norm no longer does tractor work for us, but we visit each other for kitchen or winery gossip sessions, a cup of tea or a beer for lubrication. And phone number brain synapses still pop Betty and Norm’s number up first when I try to call anyone in the area by memory, a holdover from intense I’ve never done this before but let’s talk about it days. I don’t remember well time without Ridgecrest. Part of wine’s magic is to preserve a sense of place and a sense of time, to keep a season, a piece of life. But also to celebrate moving ahead.

If I have difficulty thinking before Ridgecrest, my children find it impossible. They grew-up there. Here is one remembrance:

Up On The Hill

Time is only written ticking and alive.
I found that at age 10, and stole a month.
Return to the meadows used as a child.
They are still rich and living. The sun sets slowly
up on the hill. About 500 feet above the sea.
Brimming with harvest's seasons and seasoned
with age of living things, her bouncing white tail.
Molted horns lie undisturbed under walnut's shade.
Blackberries glisten, some have dust from the road.
The rain falls here and has habituated itself to white
farm house, red aching massive barn, and tractor
shed for dead standing machinery and beef.
The family at the top of the hill has always done it.
For generations, with dog and garden
brown, with grey in the winter, full with all that is
good in the summer's heat. There used to be prunes and walnuts
planted here during the depression. There is a Playboy calendar
in the barn next to the workbench. God is in the details,
time is that which creates and causes one to forget.

Ian Peterson-Nedry
4/15/96