Honest, we’ve been meaning to write this post for months, but there has been just so much uncertainty and hesitation about all the details, so here goes, we want to share this exciting, yet bittersweet news, we are retiring!
With that, however, there are still a lot of unanswered questions: When are you retiring? What will you move on to? Will you be moving? What’s going to happen to Bluebird Hill?
Well, these are all great questions, and read on for the definitive answers, best we can give you at this moment… Many of you, most of you, perhaps, know our story: we moved to Oregon in 2010 for Neil to take a position at OSU, bought our property in Monroe in 2011, then decided in 2013 to plant a vineyard and start a commercial winery.
Since we opened our doors to the public in May of 2016, we’ve been offering top quality Oregon wines to our friends and visitors through our tasting room, local stores and restaurants, and via distribution, on the Oregon Coast, Washington and Idaho, the Midwest, and the East Coast. The quality of our wines has improved steadily year by year, and only now in the last two years have we seen Bluebird Hill wine go coast to coast. Our wines fared wonderfully in the San Francisco Chronicle judging back in January of this year, other medals and accolades have followed including Great Northwest Wines tagging us as their ‘Oregon Winery to Watch’ for 2024, an award given to only one Oregon winery per year, typically a smaller and younger winery business. Similarly, we have seen the vineyard, planted mainly between 2013 and 2016, mature into a respected site producing top quality grapes!
The work in both the vineyard and winery has been largely done by Neil and Sue, a small crew of paid employees and interns, and a truly awesome collection of customers who turned into both great friends and loyal volunteer workers (you guys know who you are, we are SO grateful for all your help and friendship!).
We (Neil and Sue) started this endeavor back in 2013, we were both 58 years old, with the knowledge that we were taking on this project on our own, the two of us, no younger generation growing up behind us to take over the business when we either lost our desire or capacity to ‘keep on keepin’ on’! For the intervening years, between 2013 and now, (approaching age 70, see our birthday party announcement below!) We hoped to find, and looked for a younger partner who might want to take on the legacy of Bluebird Hill Cellars. At times, we thought maybe we had a good candidate or two, but nothing concrete ever panned out - - so over the past two years or so, we have come to the realization that we need to plan for a way to step away from the business. So again, here are those questions listed above, with answers as best we can give to you:
When are you retiring? We don’t exactly know. We are downsizing in several ways: first, we are harvesting our fruit this fall mainly with the help of a commercial labor company. We may call on our volunteers to help us with one or two small picks coming up, if you have been on our volunteer list, you may see emails pop into your inbox about helping.
Our winemaking will continue in 2024 and 2025: we are making our 2024 wines at Fullerton Winery in Corvallis, and we still have Pinot noir and Chardonnay in Barrel and tank from 2022 and 2023 for future bottling and sales. We have put our property on the market; some of you have already seen the listing and have been asking us about this – if the property sells sooner rather than later, Bluebird Hill wine may have a shorter future – if a sale does not happen immediately, we will continue to keep the tasting room open; most certainly through the holidays at the end of 2024, and very likely into part or all of 2025. Regardless of what might happen, we are committed to going to our regular array of winter and spring wine festivals in 2025 (Newport, Portland, etc.).
What will you move on to? We’re not exactly sure, but we want to enjoy retirement, we want to spend more time with our friends, more time traveling, more time with our hobbies, and more time involved in our volunteer activities.
Will you be moving? At some point, yes. Perhaps we will wind up staying at Bluebird Hill in Monroe for several years; we are not in a rush to move out until we can make what we feel like is a fair deal for our wonderful property. We don’t even know where we might move to, we’re most likely to stay in Oregon, in or near Corvallis or Eugene. For sure, somewhere between Salem and Southern Oregon. We might dabble with some international travel, too, perhaps spend a month or two here and there in some of our favorite places we’ve visited in Europe in the past years …
What’s going to happen to Bluebird Hill? Again, we cannot say what will happen to the Bluebird Hill Cellars brand in the future. It’s entirely possible that we will produce BBHC wines for 2025 and beyond. At the moment, this is up in the air.
Above all, the take home message is our closing is not imminent - - we have a great inventory of Bluebird Hill wines to continue to sell to our friends and the public for the next several years. The tasting room continues to be open, as usual! Special events, wine club parties, and other activities will continue!
PHEW – that was a fair amount of information, thanks for plowing through it all! Harvest is right on our doorstep and the first pick appears to be a very typical mid-September date. We’re excited to see how the new harvest and winemaking operations go – we anticipate that the move to winemaking in Corvallis might result in even better-quality wines than ever before!!
GOODBYES
Sad news for Bluebird Hill, but we wish Tommy Lee only the best as he moved from Corvallis to the Portland area at the very end of August.
Tommy came to Bluebird June of 2022, and rapidly became a whiz at all the work we asked of him in both the vineyard and winery. Additionally, he worked many hours in the tasting room, too. We appreciated and many of our guests commented on Tommy’s good nature, people skills and good sense of humor.
Best to you, Tommy!
NEW RELEASES
We are excited for you to try our latest releases, the 2022 Flagship Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.
Here are several events coming up that we hope you all can put in your fall calendar and join us:
Thursday September 12, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Bluebird Hill tasting at Corvallis Club (members only)
Saturday September 21st 10:00 am to 5:00 pm & Sunday September 22nd 10:00 am to 4:00 pm 3rd Annual Coastal Plein Art and Wine Festival Florence
We know that we have a lot to be thankful for. It's all of you that have made it possible for us to live our dreams every day. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Stay safe and healthy, and we hope to see you on the Hill or at one of our upcoming events in the near future!
Best always, Neil and Sue
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