The Fruit of the Vine

When Julia Staigers ’76 and Gerard “Gerry” Koschal ’75 decided they wanted a vineyard, they moved to the Dundee Hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, approximately 30 miles southwest of Portland. That was in 1987. Today, they not only have their vineyard, but a winery and growing retail business that is expanding into the Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana markets.

When the couple relocated to Oregon after living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, they purchased a 10-acre site with a house, shed, fruit trees, and 4.5 acres of Gewurtztraminer, Chardonnay, and Reisling grapevines. The husband-and-wife team soon began clearing the orchard and eventually replaced all of the existing grapes, except for the Riesling, with Pinot Noir. Combining their first names, they dubbed the property Juliard Vineyard.

After 20 years of selling their grapes to other wineries and making wine for themselves, Gerry and Julia began toying with the idea of opening a small winery of their own. When Julia retired from her job as a financial manager in 2007, it seemed like a good time to start.

“When you grow grapes you’re just a farmer. You produce these grapes other wineries are making nice wine out of and you just sort of get the bug that you’d like to try it yourself,” explained Gerry. “So you start out making it for yourself, you get caught up in it, and it just keeps going and going.”

As he honed his skills, Gerry learned from his own mistakes as well as the expertise of others in the business. With more than 200 wineries in the Willamette Valley, advice was never far away. He also tapped into his background as a geologist.

“From the winemaking point of view, it’s a lot of science. A lot of chemistry,” he said. “Knowing the soils as a geologist helps me decide where to site a vineyard.”

Julia, who majored in accountancy at Wright State, balances the winery and vineyard’s books and produces the necessary documentation required by the state. “There is a lot of reporting and every state that you’re in has different requirements for reporting and getting licensing. There is also a lot of federal licensing involved,” she explained. “You need to file different tax reports and of course keep good records of your own on how much wine you’ve sold. There is a lot of bookkeeping and accounting related to this.”

Under the Crumbled Rock Winery label, Julia and Gerry produce approximately 6,000 bottles of Pinot Noir each year. They have just begun to bottle Riesling and hope to have their own vintage of Chardonnay in 2011. While most of their sales are to local stores and restaurants, they recently signed on with Vintner Select for distribution in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

Since opening Crumbled Rock Winery in 2007, Julia and Gerry concede that one of their biggest challenges has been to produce a nice, drinkable wine. “I think he’s [Gerry] done that,” said Julia.

The weather in Oregon can also be problematic. “We’re a cool climate area and Pinot Noir is a cool climate grape. Unlike California, where they have an abundance of good sunshine, we’re right at the edge,” Gerry explained. “So every year you’ve got to wait it out and see when the rain is going to come in the fall. You get a lot of that anxiety every crush when it comes up.”

The grapes are usually brought in and crushed in mid to late October. Red grapes are placed in fermenters for one-and-a-half to two weeks to change the sugars to alcohol. The juices are then pressed off the skins of the grapes and placed into barrels a month later after they settle. Eighteen to 20 months later the wine is blended, bottled, and labeled.

A winery and vineyard is a far different setting from where Julia and Gerry first met. Gerry was Julia’s lab instructor when he was working on his master’s degree in geology at Wright State. “She always got mad at me when I gave her a ‘B,’” Gerry joked.

Following graduation, Gerry moved to western Colorado, where he worked for Union Carbide as an exploration geologist. When they decided to marry, Julia left Dayton and her job at NCR. The couple settled in Albuquerque, where they resided for 10 years, before moving to Oregon in 1987. Gerry still owns a consulting firm that specializes in cleaning up groundwater and other environmental contaminations.

Julia and Gerry say the most rewarding part of owning a winery is seeing others enjoy the fruits of their labor.

“It’s just a lot of fun. You meet a lot of interesting people,” said Julia. “We enjoy the wine. We enjoy making it.”

More on the Web:

Visit www.crumbledrockwines.com to learn more about Julia and Gerry’s winery and vineyard.