DAYTON, Oregon — If Remy Drabkin were a grape, she says she’d be something that’s not too “thin-skinned.”
Then she reconsiders.
“I think it’s unhealthy that we tell ourselves (that),” Drabkin, the owner of Remy Wines in Dayton, said, perched some six feet in the air between two stacks of oak barrels aging some of her old-world inspired reds.
“Maybe what I really mean by that is that I’m more adapted to deal with a variety of situations, without being damaged,” she adds.
Adaptable. Sort of like her 7 acres of vines, mostly Italian varietals, planted across these rolling hills, which with the right care, not only survive, but thrive, even when conditions might be far from ideal.
Drabkin, an out and proud winemaker, who founded Remy Wines in the Dundee Hills in 2006, is used to headwinds.
“I’m not the first queer in McMinnville,” she said, then laughs, a hearty, and heartfelt chuckle. “I’m just the loudest.”
She laughs again.
Drabkin is also the mayor.
“I’d love to talk to you about how I’m fixing our budget. I wont!” she quips.
Drabkin grew up in McMinnville. Her family was involved in the wine industry, and she fondly remembers helping out with harvests, “riding a lot of tractors and eating a lot of cinnamon rolls” she said, from a very young age.
Then, around age 8, there was a moment when she said what she’d seemingly known all along, out loud.
“What really happened is, somebody said, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’” she recalled. “And my Dad said: ‘She wants to be a doctor.’ And I said: ‘No, I want to be a winemaker.’”
And she’s never looked back.
As one of the first prominent LGBTQ+ winemakers in the Willamette Valley, Drabkin said she’s faced challenges that include having to out herself “over and over and over” again and worrying about the safety of her company and her team members.
“I do not pretend that we are not in a very rural part of the country,” she said.
Though Drabkin’s approach, she says, whether it comes to navigating business, politics, or the science and art of winemaking, is all about creating community, and building on what’s already there.
“I don’t break rules, really,” she said. “I change systems so that the rules don’t break me.”
Like the formula for the concrete foundation she co-invented for her new winery building that literally locks in the carbon. Or setting a goal to preserve the existing riparian forest and wetlands (yes, there’s a beehive too!) on her 30 -acre property as part of her master plan.
“I lay strong foundations,” Drabkin says, matter-of-factly.
And that includes giving queer winemakers from up and down the west coast, a place they can call home.
Last year, Remy Wines hosted Queer Wine Fest, a global first that brought LGBTQ+ winemakers together on the lawn under the shade trees outside the mustard yellow 1900’s farmhouse with the powder blue trim.
A chance, she says, for them to network, to share ideas, and to show off the contributions they’d made to the industry.
“We had this incredible ‘gauntlet of gays’ up and down this field here, pouring their gay wine,” Drabkin recalled with a twinkle in her eye.
“(It) was an event for us and by us, as opposed to an event where we were being put on display,” she added.
This year, it’s back, with 19 wineries with LGBTQ+ leadership from Oregon, Washington, and California, returning to showcase their best bottles, with plenty of food, picnic blankets, and live music.
Photos: Queer Wine Fest 2022
Then there’s the nonprofit Drabkin co-founded in 2020: Wine Country Pride, which says it aims to positively impact as many people in the community as possible.
“There was no Pride celebration here until we brought one, made one…until we changed it,” Drabkin said.
And just last month, Time Out named McMinnville one of the top LGBTQ-friendly small towns in the country.
When we ask Drabkin if that’s because of her work at the winery and beyond, she gently corrects us:
“It’s because of our efforts. It’s not just because of me,” she said.
“I step up and step in a lot,” she added. “And I think that inspires other people to do the same.”
“So what’s next?” we ask, glass of her Black Heart Blanc de Noir (celebrating resilience, joy, beauty, and love) in hand.
She laughs.
Queer Wine Fest is Sunday, June 25, 2023 from 4PM-7PM at Remy Wines in Dayton. Tickets will likely sell out but are available here.
You can also purchase a bottle of 2021 Black Heart Blanc de Noir which Drabkin says is her fundraiser wine that supports the ACLU and its work related to LGBTQ+ people.