Forrest Schaad - Willamette Valley, Oregon
(white dog, grapes and forrest)
(Editor's Note: From the Schaad family diary:
"Weather for May 30, 1902: 62 degrees high,
41 degrees low, 1/10” rainfall.")
If you had been on Schaad Hill on the morning of May 30, 1902, you'd've needed a heavier jacket than you might've wanted to be wearing so late into spring. Forrest Schaad’s great-grandparents, August and Anna Schaad, were up there all these many years ago, planting walnut trees and taking weather data. August and Anna eloped from Nebraska and set up a homestead in Newberg, Oregon on Schaad Hill.
Quietly, their descendants have been farming the land ever since: walnuts, berries, and other food crops. In 1980 Forrest's father planted 4 acres of vines from cuttings from Oregon wine pioneers Dick Erath and Myron Redford. Somehow, today, May 30, 2018, was the first time we tasted Forrest Schaad’s stunning, history-rich wines. The weather one hundred and sixteen years ago on this very same date was rather similar — other things on the farm have changed a bit...
Forrest bounded into the store — like a streak of sunlight — in a wide-brimmed hat this gloomy morning, and cleared the clouds with tales of his work on his land. It is not like he doesn't get around much, but, he doesn't! He is spending almost all his time on his land, working and enjoying being there. His work on his farm is aimed at creating an entirely self-sustaining ecosystem. As one example, the roots of his walnut trees hold the soil on the slopes back from erosion. Forrest and two other family members hand-harvest and vinify wines from 15 acres of dry-farmed terroir. He described how the Schaads farm using homemade compost teas and biodynamic preparations. Rather than use store-bought, mill-made endposts for the vine rows, Forrest uses volunteer trees as endpoints — not just because it's a sustainable way to work, but because it's a pleasure to sit in the shade of a tree after a long walk down the row harvesting or pruning. His farming practices are a combination of long-term land stewardship and a pleasurable two-way relationship with his land, of providing a comfortable place for yourself to sit outside to enjoy the view. Forrest says that you gotta do the thing you love... People will find it eventually. He's a young, old-school farmer with a 21st century perspective and 116 years of weather data. And somehow we are just hearing about it!
