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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2020
Oregon wine industry frustrated by lockdown
By SIERRA DAWN
McCLAIN
Capital Press
DUNDEE — Friday the
13th of November, Pamela
MacLellan,
operations
director of Dusky Goose
Winery, got the news that
Oregon was going into a
second lockdown because
of the surging coronavirus
pandemic.
Gov. Kate Brown soon
released further details: Win-
eries are part of the so-called
“freeze” for at least two
weeks that started Wednes-
day, and are prohibited from
providing indoor or outdoor
wine tastings or meals. Tast-
ing rooms are still open for
deliveries, takeout or curb-
side service.
“The news was so disap-
pointing to us — and not just
for us. Every winery here
in the valley is feeling the
pain,” said MacLellan.
Winery owners say the
order blindsided them,
fl icking suddenly like a
light switch. And the tim-
ing, many say, could not be
worse. The weekends around
Thanksgiving are typically
some of the most profi t-
able of the year. Growers
and winery owners told the
Capital Press they are espe-
cially frustrated by the exec-
utive order because many
invested in new infrastruc-
ture for socially distanced
indoor and outdoor seating.
Dusky Goose Win-
ery, MacLellan said, just
installed new heaters, stools
and furniture on its outdoor
veranda so guests could
safely celebrate the holidays
with wine tasting.
MacLellan’s winery was
not the only one.
Industry lists show Yam-
hill Valley Vineyards, Apol-
loni Vineyards, Cana’s Feast
Winery, ROCO Winery,
Penner-Ash Wine Cellars,
Stoller Family Estate, Parrett
Mountain Cellars, Furioso
Winery, Knudsen Vineyards
and Chris James Cellars are
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
The tasting room at Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner.
among the many wineries
that were planning to offer
socially distanced, heated
and covered outdoor spaces
for wine tasting this fall.
They plan to reopen
on-site tasting as soon as
they are allowed.
One winery director who
did not wish to be identi-
fi ed told the Capital Press
their small winery has spent
upwards of $15,000 install-
ing heaters and other equip-
ment the past few months.
The director said it’s frus-
trating to be shut down again
after investing so much
money.
“It’s just wrong (tastings)
got shut down after all that
‘IT’S JUST WRONG (TASTINGS) GOT SHUT DOWN
AFTER ALL THAT EXPENSE. AND THEY’VE BEEN SO
CAREFUL, TOO. SOME OF THE TASTINGS, IT’S LIKE
GOING INTO A SURGICAL ROOM. THEY WORK TO BE
SO SANITARY, IT’S LIKE YOU’RE IN THE ICU.’
Jim Bernau | founder of Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner.
expense. And they’ve been
so careful, too. Some of the
tastings, it’s like going into
a surgical room. They work
to be so sanitary, it’s like
you’re in the ICU,” said Jim
Bernau, founder of Willa-
mette Valley Vineyards in
Turner.
Bernau said he hasn’t
heard of any case yet of
someone tracing the contrac-
tion of COVID-19 to a wine
tasting room.
Just as they did during
the fi rst lockdown, wineries
are pivoting to e-commerce,
home delivery and retail and
other sales venues.
But for many wine busi-
nesses — especially small
ones that rely on tasting
room sales and wine club
memberships — the second
lockdown could prove seri-
ously harmful.
Dusky Goose Winery
and others have had to can-
cel holiday events. Nor-
mally, wineries make a large
percentage of their annual
revenue from special holi-
day wines sold on-site with
higher price tags that they
won’t be able to sell as eas-
ily this year.
Bernau estimated small
wineries often make 40%
of their annual revenue the
weekend before Thanksgiv-
ing through the end of the
holiday season.
“Local wineries depend
on visitors and club mem-
bers. They’re our bread and
butter, and this closure is
going to be hard,” MacLel-
lan said.
‘Interior Chinatown,’ Malcolm X book win National Book Awards
By HILLEL ITALIE
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Charles
Yu’s “Interior Chinatown,”
a satirical, cinematic novel
written in the form of a
screenplay, has won the
National Book Award for
fi ction.
Tamara
Payne
and
her father, the late Les
Payne’s Malcolm X biog-
raphy, “The Dead Are Aris-
ing,” was cited for nonfi c-
tion and Kacen Callender’s
“King and the Dragonfl ies”
for young people’s litera-
ture. The poetry prize went
to Don Mee Choi’s “DMZ
Colony” and the winner for
best translated work was Yu
Miri’s “Tokyo Ueno Sta-
tion,” translated from Japa-
nese by Morgan Giles.
Honorary medals were
given Wednesday night to
mystery novelist Walter
Mosley and to the late CEO
of Simon & Schuster, Caro-
lyn Reidy, who died in May
at age 71. The children’s
author and U.S. youth
ambassador for young adult
literature Jason Reynolds
served as emcee, and along
with Bob Woodward and
Walter Isaacson was among
the Simon & Schuster writ-
ers who appeared in a taped
tribute to Reidy.
Because of the coronavi-
rus pandemic, one of pub-
lishing’s most high-profi le
gatherings was streamed
online, with presenters and
winners speaking every-
where from New York to
Japan. The traditional din-
ner ceremony is the non-
profi t National Book Foun-
dation’s most important
source of income and is
usually held at Cipriani
Wall Street, where publish-
ers and other offi cials pay
thousands of dollars for
tables or individual seats.
The foundation instead
has been asking for dona-
tions of $50 or more. As of
Wednesday evening, just
over $490,000 had been
pledged from 851 donors.
“It’s hard in a pan-
Charles Yu’s ‘Interior Chinatown,’ a satirical, cinematic novel written in the form of a screenplay, left, and ‘The Dead Are Arising:
The Life of Malcolm X,’ a biography by Tamara Payne and her late father, Les Payne, won this year’s fi ction and nonfi ction
National Book Awards.
demic. We were scared
we wouldn’t be able to do
this show,” said founda-
tion executive director Lisa
Lucas, speaking online
from the children’s room
of the Los Angeles Public
Library. Lucas, the exec-
utive director since 2016,
will depart at the end of the
year to become publisher
for the Penguin Random
House imprints Pantheon
and Schocken. Her succes-
sor has not been announced.
Along with the pan-
demic and the presiden-
tial election, diversity has
been an ongoing theme in
the book world this year
and remained so Wednes-
day night, from Lucas urg-
ing publishers to work at
transforming a historically
white industry to the win-
ners themselves.
Yu’s novel is a sendup
of Chinese stereotypes and
of the immigrants’ confl ict
between wanting to assim-
ilate and asserting their
true selves. “DMZ Colony”
combines poetry, prose and
images in its exploration
of the history between the
United States and South
Korea. Mosley, the fi rst
Black man to win the medal
for Distinguished Contribu-
tion to American Letters,
spoke of his debt to such
literary heroes as Ishmael
Reed, John Edgar Wideman
and Ralph Ellison.
The award for “The
Dead Are Arising” is the
second time in a decade a
Malcolm X biography has
received a high honor for
nonfi ction and the second
time the honor was, at least
in part, posthumous. The
scholar Manning Marable
died right before the 2011
publication of “Malcolm
X,” which went on to win a
Pulitzer Prize and receive a
National Book Award nom-
ination. Les Payne, a Pulit-
zer Prize-winning journal-
ist, died in 2018.
“This is such a bitter-
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sweet moment,” Tamara
Payne said upon accept-
ing the award Wednesday
night. “I really wish my
father was here for this.”
Few references were
made to the recent election,
though politics did help
inspire Yu, whose previ-
ous books include the story
collections “Third Class
Superhero” and “Sorry
Please Thank You.” He had
struggled with “Interior
Chinatown,” wondering if
there was a reason to tell an
immigration story, until the
surprise victory of Donald
Trump in 2016.
“Before then, I felt it
lacked a real reason for
being,” Yu said in a recent
interview.
“It
seemed
that reference to things in
the past like the Chinese
Exclusion Act (a racist law
passed in 1882) had rele-
vance. I started thinking,
‘This does still matter. This
is a story you should try to
tell.’”
Winners in each of
the competitive catego-
ries receive $10,000, and
other fi nalists $1,000, with
the money divided equally
between the author and
translator for best trans-
lated book. Roxane Gay,
Rebecca
Makkai
and
Dinaw Mengestu were
among the authors, book-
sellers and others in the
publishing community who
as awards judges selected
fi nalists from more than
1,600 books — many of
them read digitally because
of the pandemic.
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