In 2023, on a weekend in the Willamette Valley, a Lyft driver planted a paradox in my mind. I was headed to Okta, which at that moment was the most talked-about tasting-menu restaurant in the state. The driver didn’t precisely roll his eyes when I mentioned it but performed a flutter of the palpebra all the same. “I heard that takes a long time,” he told me. “Like three hours or something?”
Then I told him that the next night I would be checking out Humble Spirit, now called Grounded Table. The McMinnville locavore haunt is part of the Ground, an ambitious network of businesses that includes a kind of eco-hotel, boutique rental homes, working farms and farmstands, and an event venue. The driver’s tone shifted completely. “I was just there for my wife’s birthday!” he said, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.
Fear of a “Napa-fication” of the Willamette Valley has loomed for years. A Food & Wine article from 2023 depicts big money chasing a cooler climate, grafting a clonal varietal of California luxury onto the comparatively humble rolling hills, and—the worry is—ruining everything special about the place. In terms of wine, this looks like storied estates from elsewhere “validating” the area by buying local vineyards: entities like Constellation Brands (which purchased Lingua Franca), Silver Oak (which purchased an Erath vineyard), Chateau Ste. Michelle (which purchased A to Z), Jackson Family Wines (which purchased WillaKenzie, Gran Moraine, and Penner-Ash), and Champagne Bollinger (which purchased Ponzi Vineyards)…