12 CapitalPress.com
October 28, 2016
Loeza
Area in detail
CONTINUED from Page 1
“I don’t have words to ex-
plain how I feel, and my fam-
ily feels, to have a vineyard
with our name,” he says.
8
Hillsboro
47
Honoring the story
219
Henry
Hagg
Lake
Gaston, Ore.:
approximate
site of Loeza
Vineyard
Yamhill
240
47
Newberg
99W
2 miles
McMinnville
18
River
N
e
mett
Willa
His is a familiar tale, and
it is one Oregon agriculture,
especially the wine industry,
appears to be more comfort-
able in telling. At many farms
and processing plants, of
course, the work crews — the
planters, pruners, pickers and
packers — are heavily Latino.
But in many cases they are
also the managers, coordinat-
ing crews, planning work and
carrying out a company’s vi-
sion at ground level.
Oregon’s vineyard and
winery operators in particu-
lar have taken steps to sup-
port and acknowledge the
workforce. For 25 years, the
industry has funded ¡Salud!
Services through Tuality
Healthcare, which provides
free medical screening and
other services to seasonal
vineyard workers and their
families. Money comes from
a two-day tasting and Pinot
noir auction hosted by wine-
makers every November; the
2015 event raised $800,000.
At the 2016 Oregon Wine
Symposium this past winter,
the industry for the first time
gave out Vineyard Excel-
lence Awards.
The winners were Jesse
Lopez, of Celestina Vine-
yards in Southern Oregon;
Irineo Magana, of Phelps
Creek Vineyards in the Co-
lumbia River Gorge; and
Efren Loeza, who began
work at Tualatin Estate Vine-
yard in 1979 and stayed on
when it was bought in 1997 by
Willamette Valley Vineyards,
based in Turner, Ore., outside
Salem. Loeza manages all the
company’s vineyards up and
down the valley, 498 acres of
grapes.
Mark Gibbs, senior agron-
omist with Oregon Vineyard
Supply in McMinnville, is
pleased to see rising recogni-
tion of farmworkers’ contri-
butions, including his long-
time friend, Loeza.
“He represents the back-
bone of our industry,” Gibbs
said. “Without folks like
Efren Loeza and the others,
we would not exist.”
Over time, Latinos are in-
creasingly becoming farmers
themselves, not just laborers.
The USDA’s 2012 Census
of Agriculture showed the
number of Hispanic farm-
ers reached nearly 100,000
nationwide, a 21 percent in-
crease over 2007. Two-thirds
of them were principal opera-
tors, also a 21 percent increase
over the previous census.
The change comes as
the U.S. is having what Jim
Bernau, Willamette Valley
Vineyards founder and CEO,
describes as a “strong discus-
sion” about immigration.
Bernau said experts in de-
mographics believe a coun-
try’s long-term success de-
pends on the level of upward
mobility it provides immi-
grants. He considers Loeza
8
Forest Grove
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Photos by Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Efren Loeza takes a call in his vineyard offi ce. From his beginning as a teenage laborer who had entered the country illegally and spoke
no English, he’s risen over 37 years to manage more than 300 acres of wine grapes for Willamette Valley Vineyards, one of Oregon’s
distinguished operations.
A freshly-planted Pinot gris vine takes in the sunshine at Loeza
Vineyard near Gaston, Ore. The new vineyard is named for Efren
Loeza and his family. Loeza, who started as a teenage laborer
37 years ago, today oversees more than 300 acres of grapes for
Willamette Valley Vineyards.
In an emotional moment outside Gaston, Ore., Efren Loeza plants
the fi rst vine, a Pinot gris, in what will be known as the Loeza
Vineyard. Loeza manages more than 300 acres of wine grapes for
Willamette Valley Vineyards, and the company wanted to honor him
and his extended family.
and others “one of those great
American immigrant success
stories.”
“Those people in the fu-
ture will not only have their
hands on the clippers and on
the tractor steering wheel,” he
said, “but on the levers of the
major business decisions.”
A stick in the ground
Efren Loeza crossed the
border illegally when he was
17, accompanying his father,
who had called upon him to
work the crops, make money,
and help support the family.
Efren cried when they left
home in the Mexican state of
Michoacan, because he want-
ed to stay in school and work
locally.
“No, I need help bringing
more money to the house,” his
father answered. “That’s my
last word.”
Loeza and his father ar-
rived at a labor camp in Cor-
nelius, Ore., on April 15,
1979. Efren spoke no English
and didn’t know where he
was; on the long trip north
he’d peppered his father with
questions about where they
would stay and how they
would eat.
The fi rst spring and sum-
mer they picked strawberries,
cucumbers and blackberries,
and traveled into Washington
to work the apple crop. They
returned to join the crew at
Bill Fuller’s Tualatin Estate
Vineyard near Forest Grove,
pruning and training vines.
Efren was fascinated by the
realization that you could put
what looked like a stick into
the ground and it would turn
into grapes.
In 1981 he was arrested
for driving with a suspended
license, spent a week in jail
and was sent back to Mexico
when his illegal status was
discovered. The judge told
him he could return when he
fi xed his papers. The vineyard
owner, Fuller, held a job open
for him and rehired him when
he returned. He eventually be-
came a U.S. citizen.
The vineyard manager, the
late David Foster, was fl uent
in Spanish and had taken a
liking to the inquisitive teen-
ager.
“You can work for us for
20 years,” he told Loeza at
one point.
“Well, I like to learn,”
Efren replied. “If I’m going to
stay here 20 years, I want to
know what I’m doing.”
He began a journal, taking
notes on what he did every
day in the vineyard. At one
point, he showed it to Foster.
“You know what,” the
manager said, “one day
you’re going to be the main
person here.”
Gibbs, the Oregon Vine-
yard agronomist, said Loeza
often approached him with
fertilizer, pest and plant dis-
ease questions. “He’d bring
me a shoot and say, ‘Mark,
what’s this?’
“He impressed me as a
person who wanted to learn to
better himself and his family,”
Gibbs said. “Ultimately, he’s
a real success story.”
In 1984 Loeza moved to
a job in the winery, and spent
the next 16 years learning all
aspects of making wine in ad-
dition to doing vineyard work.
Fuller, the owner, taught him to
taste the complex notes in wine.
Over time, Loeza’s par-
ents and all but one of his 10
brothers and sisters joined
him in Oregon or moved from
Mexico to California. Many
of them worked at the vine-
yard; his younger brother,
Miguel, has worked with him
since 1981.
In 2000, three years after
Willamette Valley Vineyards
bought the business from
Fuller, new owner Bernau sat
down with Loeza and told him
he had a new job: vineyard
manager.
“You guys chose the
wrong person,” Loeza said
he responded. “I only went to
school seven years.”
“Why don’t you try it for
one year?” Bernau suggested.
After one year passed, Bernau
said he should try it for anoth-
er. Loeza has been there ever
since.
Loeza said the difference
between taking instructions
and making his own deci-
sions at the vineyard nearly
overwhelmed him. It helped
that he was able to consult his
management notes, kept in
journals that date to 1982.
“The fi rst year, I don’t
know how I survived,” he
said.
But Bernau had confi dence
in him.
“He knows what he’s do-
ing and he knows it well,” he
said. “He’s a very hands-on
leader. He treats people well
and is respectful to them.
“He has a high level of
emotional intelligence,” Ber-
nau said. “He knows how to
identify talent and motivate
talent in a very effective way,
a very productive way.”
He said Loeza is able to
grow high-quality fruit with-
in the company’s framework
of costs and prices, while
fending off the challenges of
weather.
“It’s a very challenging
business and you really need
remarkable talent to be suc-
cessful in it,” Bernau said.
“Why is Willamette Valley
Vineyards so successful? One
of the answers is Efren Loe-
za.”
Loeza and his wife, Her-
minia, live in what used to
be Bill Fuller’s house on the
company’s Tualatin Estate
vineyard near Forest Grove,
and three of his four children
grew up there. His father,
Marcos, died of heart failure
in the house in 2005 after
celebrating Efren’s birthday.
Every Saturday, the extended
family gathers at his mother’s
house in Cornelius to eat and
enjoy each other’s company.
Bernau intended to plant
only Pinot gris on the compa-
ny’s new vineyard near Gas-
ton. When he told Efren the
vineyard would be named after
the family, however, Loeza in-
sisted it had to have some Pinot
noir as well. The complex and
nuanced fl avor of Pinot noir
make it Loeza’s favorite, in part
because it’s also a challenge
to grow from that stick in the
ground.
Bernau didn’t argue.
“One of my great joys,” he
said, “is seeing Efren and his
family arise.”
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