families, and endanger their quality of life. If I had believed all the things they said would happen, I would have been against us too. The petition recorded fifty-three signatures. I was saddened to see the signatures of some of my Unity Club friends. No one had talked to me about their concerns—they had just signed.
Adding fuel to the religious opposition was political opposition roused by Bill’s work on the county land use plan. Saving hillsides for agriculture might have been good long-range planning, but it infuriated farmers who had wanted to divide their land into smaller parcels or build more than one house on it. After working on the county plan, Bill was appointed to the Yamhill County Planning Commission, whose task was to uphold the new plan. He recused himself when we applied for our winery permit. People who had been denied their petitions saw a chance for revenge. One opponent stated flatly, “Blosser kept me from getting my request; I’m sure as hell going to keep him from getting his.”
The hearing before the Yamhill County Planning Commission, February 17, 1977, took place in the basement of the Yamhill County courthouse. The low-ceilinged hearing room was packed when we arrived. I wondered what had brought out all these people and was shocked when I found out they were there for us. Or rather, against us. We were blindsided. The fierce looks on people’s faces made it clear that Bill and I were the enemy and it was their mission to defeat us. Our permit request was the second item on the agenda. The commissioners never got to the third item; our hearing took up the rest of the evening.
The anti-winery faction had turned out in force, bringing an attorney, people to testify, and their petition full of signatures. Many of the complaints had nothing to do with the proposed winery but spoke to vineyard issues—the use of noisy air cannons to scare away birds, fear of the migrant workers employed during harvest. “Technical” reasons for opposition were that a winery would lower the water table by using too much water, cause pollution, lower property values, create traffic jams, generate offensive odors with fruit waste, promote drunkenness, be a visual blight in the neighborhood, and be incompatible with the existing development in the area.
Bill quietly and methodically presented our case and painstakingly rebutted the opposing testimony, point by point. He had put in a full day of work in Portland and barely had time to grab dinner. Alone and vulnerable in the face of such intense opposition, I could see him struggling to stay calm and not rise to the emotional pitch of his opponents. Surrounded by a sea of angry people, wishing I were anywhere else, I listened to people around me condemning our project. I could feel my shoulders hunching up around my ears.
A tension-relieving moment came when Howard Timmons, a retired farmer who owned a large parcel at the top of our hill, stood up to testify against the noise from our bird-scaring air cannon. He was feisty and agitated about how bothersome that was. When he finished, Bill asked him to clarify one of the allegations. Silence. The audience looked expectantly at Howard until his wife, Hazel, finally interceded to explain that he hadn’t heard the question; he was almost deaf. People couldn’t help laughing, even though Howard had most certainly damaged their case. The absurdity of Howard complaining about the air cannon he couldn’t hear epitomized, for us, the whole anti-winery campaign.
After three hours of testimony, the planning commissioners, apparently perplexed by the strength of the opposition, questioned their staff, which had recommended approval. After making sure the opponents’ arguments were unsubstantiated, they voted unanimously to approve the project and send it on to the Board of Commissioners for approval.
When we got home, Bill was exhausted and I was still so upset that I rolled Bill’s exercise bike into the living room, hopped on and pedaled as hard as I could, venting the anger I had controlled at the hearing. The personal attack and questions about our morality had hit a nerve. The testimony on religious grounds such as, “I am against the winery because of my Christian family values” implied that because we wanted to start a winery we were immoral. Their condescension and sanctimony infuriated me. Their behavior struck me as very un-Christian. This was my first encounter with outspoken prejudice in the name of God, and it was a rude awakening.
At the commissioners’ hearing two weeks later, the anti-winery faction was back in force. This was their chance to appeal to the three men who had been elected to the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners and had the final say over policy issues. The commissioners listened carefully to their constituents and did not automatically adopt the recommendations of the planning commission. We knew our opponents had a good shot with their appeal. Each person who testified against us presented a picture or map showing how close they lived to the proposed winery and pointed out the dangers they faced—waste and water runoff flowing onto their property, increased traffic driving by their residences, a sinful business corrupting their family life.
But this time we came armed, bringing neighbors and other winery and vineyard people to speak on our behalf. I had eighteen signatures on a petition requesting that any decision by the Board of Commissioners be based on facts, not fears. Most people had signed our opponents’ petition simply because either a neighbor had asked or they were scared by the scenarios the petitioners had described. The small core of people who set out to defeat the winery proposal had stirred up a lot of commotion and I realized I needed to do damage control.
Immediately after the planning commission hearing, while Bill was at work in Portland, I had gone to visit the neighbors to explain what we wanted to do. After my visit, most wanted to stay out of the fight entirely, realizing that our winery would not cause the problems they had been led to believe. By presenting a map showing the locations of neighbors who were opposed, in favor, and neutral, Bill was able to demonstrate that more homeowners in our immediate area were in favor of our application than were opposed. Bill’s quiet dismantling of the opposing testimony contrasted sharply with the emotional, often illogical testimony of those against the winery.
The commissioners, probably baffled by all the turmoil over what seemed a straightforward issue, postponed their decision for two weeks. Finally, they came out in favor of our application for a land use permit. We celebrated, but the fight was not quite over. The hard core of the opposition appealed the county’s decision to the courts, throwing us into a quandary. We had been waiting for resolution before starting construction. If we waited until the appeal wended its way through the courts, we would not have the winery ready for the 1977 crush. We were pretty sure the courts would uphold the county’s decision, but what if they didn’t? We decided to take the risk. When a court decision in our favor finally put an end to the long, emotional battle, we could move full steam ahead.
Our experience paved the way for future wineries; the county made the establishment of a winery on land with a minimum number of vineyard acres an outright permitted use, on the assumption that a winery facility was needed to process the fruit. Later wineries did not have to face the same kind of opposition that we did.
Once the winery was built and the neighbors saw their fears were groundless, they took pride in it. Within fifteen years, the wine industry had gained sufficient status that land that had cost eight hundred dollars an acre when we started was selling for as much as fifteen thousand dollars an acre. Soon after that, it more than doubled and is still rising. The same people who fought us started actively promoting their properties as vineyard land, with premium price tags. Years later, in exquisite irony, the poorly producing wheat fields Howard Timmons fought to protect from the wine business sold for a bundle to become high-value vineyards.
On October 10, 1977, the day finally came when our first block of grapes was ready to pick and we could start the winery’s first vintage. Our twenty-person crew started at seven in the morning and didn’t stop to eat until they finished, working as if they’d each had a shot of adrenaline. Wielding curved knives with wooden handles and leather wrist straps, they grasped the grape clusters and cut the stems with swift, short strokes.
In the quiet early morning, as the picking began, the only sound was the clusters thudding into empty buckets. As the pickers got into a rhythm, the noise level rose. Soon
