16
Wednesday,March31,2021
Columbia Gorge News
www.columbiagorgenews.com
GORGE LOCAL, IN BUSINESS
The Pines finds it’s ‘just right’ venue with
move to Oak Street in Hood River
New location has
charm, room for
more seating
Kirby Neumann-Rea
■ By Columbia
Gorge News
T
HE PINES’ CHARMS
continue to unfold. One
of the Gorge’s charter
wineries starts a new chapter
with the move in recent
weeks to a new tasting room
location, at 415 Oak St., set to
open in April.
“These tendrils will grab a
hold, they’re pretty strong,”
vintner Lonnie Wright says
as he shows techniques for
developing new and repeated
growth for grape vines, in a
2009 The Pines documentary
directed by Mariah Dunn.
His words also say something
about the resilience of the
winery, based south of The
Dalles on the scenic and
historic property that bears
its name.
After eight years in its loca-
tion at 202 Cascade Avenue
and seven years before that
at Second and State, the
tasting room’s move to Oak
Street saw firm manifestation
on March 24 when a crew
moved the bar, made of dark
cherry wood, into its new
spot. Moving base and top
was a five-man operation.
Complementing the bar
are a newly-exposed brick
wall on the west, and the
paneling on the south wall,
left unchanged from the pre-
vious occupant of the space,
Hood River Jewelers, which
vacated in January.
“I once got the best com-
pliment, when a guy stood
here and told me he just
knew the bar is an antique. I
told him ‘two years ago it was
a tree’,” said Mick Schneider
of Stevenson — who made
the bar eight years ago.
Wiring, some drywall fin-
ishing, and final permits are
mainly what stand between
The Pines and the hoped-for
April 3 reopening.
“We’ve been wanting to be
on Oak Street from the begin-
ning but it never really lined
up until now,” said Sierra
Wright, Lonnie’s daughter
and tasting room manager.
The State Street site (now
Pure Stoke, formerly Second
Wind Sports) featured a large
bar and had music from the
start, first as a simple jam
session with Kerry Williams,
the late Rick Hulett and other
musicians and developing
into a set of casual concerts
that drew 100 or more people
at a time.
“That’s one of the things
we’ve kind of known for
and we really want to bring
it back. Everyone wants it,”
Lonnie said.
Music, with smaller en-
sembles remained a mainstay
with the move to Cascade.
People would often fill the
sidewalk outside the roll-up
doors on summer evenings.
As with all venues, the music
faded about a year ago (the
“tasting room” has done take-
out only for the past year) but
The Pines is primed to revive
it, with greater guest spacing
— and plexiglass between
performers and guests.
The Cascade space was
much smaller than the first
one on State. The Oak Street
“Our oasis,” tasting room manager Sierra Wright said of the back garden, which will have a new deck, seating and pagoda. Overhead is the north wall of Hood River County
Library.
Kirby Neumann-Rea photos
venue is somewhere in
between.
“We’re Goldilocks, ba-
sically. This is jussst right,”
said Sierra, who 16 years
ago convinced her father to
open a tasting room.
“It’s your baby, just don’t
ever ask me to work behind
the bar,” Sierra quoted
Lonnie in the documentary.
The Wrights said last
week that the advantage is
not so much the increased
square footage but the lay-
out and how it is situated.
“This is a much larger main
room, which is what we need
for seating,” she said.
“The shape of the place
fits us a lot better, especial-
ly when you have to take
COVID into account,” Lonnie
said. “The other place the
bar was the centerpiece and
close to everything, and it
was two rooms so the people
in the back room, unless we
were conducting a tasting,
felt like left out when it came
to the music.
“It’s going to be nice to
have a bigger room.”
Now there is no second-
ary, private room like at the
Cascade location, but go
down the back hallway, past
the office and storage and
restrooms, then take a right
out the back door and ...
"... This is what I’m most
excited about,” Sierra said.
“Our oasis.”
The back garden will
feature sheltered seating and
a firepit, and an upper deck
with pagoda.
“This was a bit of a sight,
with thick blackberry bushes.
a tree and a huge pile of rub-
bish,” she said.
The garden is framed by
rough concrete retaining
walls, and the north side of
the Hood River Library loom-
ing overhead.
“I like the charm. I like
all the moss and the cracks
and it shows off that it’s been
here awhile and seen some
things,” Sierra said. “That’s
why we exposed the brick
wall on the interior. I love the
history in these buildings,
and I think in the 1960s and
1970s a lot of it got covered
up and now we’re trying to
unveil a little more of the
history of downtown.”
There’s a great deal of
history to The Pines, at the
tasting room that’s the urban
base of a vineyard where
Wright first started working,
later buying the property and
raising his family.
In 1982, Wright purchased
the Zinfandel vineyard,
believed to be the first in
the Northwest, planted in
the 1880s but abandoned in
1964. When he encountered
them they were all but dead,
but he revived them and,
with new plantings, devel-
oped the grapes he now sells
to over 20 wineries. In 2001
he decided to “keep some of
the grapes for myself” and
created The Pines 1852 win-
ery on the same land planted
with Zinfandel about 140
years ago by Italian immi-
grant Louis Comini, He can
point to the oldest of the old
vines on the same hillside to-
day, and said while he is not
sure when they were planted
(nor if Comini brought the
cuttings from California or
Italy), the vines are shown in
a 1911 photo of the hillside.
He expanded The Pines
Estate Vineyard over the
years by planting a new block
of Zinfandel in 1987, Merlot
in 1991 and 1993 and Syrah
in 1994. About the time the
tasting room opens, the 2018
Syrah will be ready to uncork.
Lonnie Wright, second from left,
and bar maker Mick Schneider,
right, direct placement of the
cherry bar top at the new home
of The Pines tasting room, 415
Oak St. Hood River.
In 2002 the Sheldon Ridge
fire threatened the structures
and the vineyard, and Lonnie
and Sierra filled a wine tank
with water and used it to fend
off the blaze, saving the vines.
Wright said in the 2009
documentary that, “What we
do is sustainable farming,
but sustainable is not only
our practices on the land
and with the plants but also
concerning our employees
and people trying the wine
out, too.”