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Wine making with
By Happie Thacker
Of The Print
A sense of Oregon's history
and roots reaching back over a
hundred years to Germany, sur
rounds the Redwood Wine Com
pany in Milwaukie.
This marvelous old house has been divided into apartments as Boetje
likes company more than extra room. Her living quarters are filled with
antiques and souvenirs from both the old and new world.
Dora Boetje, whose father
started the actual winery in 1893,
still makes concord grape wine
the way her grandfather, did,
the way her grandfather did,
although she has added rhubarb
wine and honey mead to her
small selection.
"My grandfather introduced
concord grapes to Oregon at
Mt. Tabor around 1883," said
Boetje. "He moved to Milwau
kie in 1890 and began by making
wine in the basement for his own
use.
"I've been making wine since
I could walk, you might say.
I've lived with it."
Boetje's winery is small and
her production last year was
five barrels of Rhubarb wine,
which is about 225 gallons.
"It's the smallest winery in
Oregon at the present," said
Boetje, "One person can't do
much and since I'm 84-years-old
I've had to slow down a lit
tle."
These wine kegs hold a part of Boetje's small store of excellent
wine. She only produces from five to 25 barrels each year but says the
work and exercise are what keeps her young at 84.
She didn't make grape wine
last year because the grape crop
was non-existant, according to
Boetje, due to the bad weather.
'.'There wouldn't have been
enough sugar in them if there
had been any," she said, "so I
guess we were lucky."
The’ grapes generally grow
very well in Oregon's climate
which is similar to that of Nor
thern France and Germany.
In her most productive years,
Boetje turned out 25 barrels of
wine at approximately 45 gal-
per barrel.
She distributes the wine from
her house and relies on word of
mouth advertising. Her wine is
so good that some people are re
ported to have been sworn to
secrecy about its location so
that her small stock would not
be depleted too rapidly.
"I have mostly aged wines
now," she said.
Boetje began making honey
mead as an experiment several
years ago, from a recipe she
found in a book from the health
food store. "It didn't turn out
good enough to be sold com
mercially and I wanted to con
tact someone in England where
they make mead. I wrote to a
wine supply distributor whose
address I got from a publication
put out by an English wine mak
ing society, and asked him for a
recipe. I also sent him the one I
had used."
"When he wrote back he said
'If you could make good honey
mead the way you made yours
why couldn't you do it the
right way?' and send me his
recipe. I've been making good
mead ever since."
H
Ti
By
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nr
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This press is only a small cider
press but is suitable for Boetje's
small, basement operation.
Dora Boetje explains the finer points of wine making between tales
of her grandfather and father and their contributions to the winery.
Even the Redwood Wine Com
pany's label has a past. It began
as the label for primroses Boetje
used to raise. The trees represent
the magnificent ones in front of
the house, which is called The
Redwoods, and the flowers are
primroses. According to Boetje,
primroses are used to make wine
in England.
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