Intentionally Unconventional

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Benedict Hardy
5 years ago
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1 Media Kit

2 Our Story VIDON Vineyard (vee-don) was founded in 1999 by Vicki & Don Hagge (Vi-don, get it?). Situated in the Chehalem Mountains AVA at an elevation between feet, VIDON is a small, vertically-integrated vineyard & winery not bound in tradition. Bringing a background in science and engineering to the Willamette Valley wine industry (Don was a physicist for NASA!), everything is done by hand on the property caring for the vines, harvesting the grapes, producing the wine, selling the wine directto-consumer, and even building wine equipment by hand. VIDON produces between 1,500-2,000 cases each vintage of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Viognier, Syrah & Tempranillo, all grown on the Estate Vineyard. Both the winery and the vineyard are LIVE certified. In 1999, Don & Vicki purchased their 20-acre property - a classic Oregon property filled with poison oak and tree stumps from being logged back in the early 1990 s. The first seven acres of the property were cleared and planted with Pinot Noir in The 14.5-acre vineyard was then filled with Chardonnay, Viognier, Syrah and Tempranillo. The first wine produced and sold was the 2003 vintage. Each vintage, VIDON produces their 3-Clones Pinot Noir, a blend of the three different clones of Pinot Noir planted in the vineyard Clone 777, Clone 115 and Pommard, which are also bottled individually as clonal designates. We also produce an Estate Chardonnay and a Barrel Select Pinot Noir, which represents our favorite barrels of the vintage. Most recently, we launched our Space Exploration Series wines as a testament to Don s experience with NASA featuring a barrel select Chardonnay, estate Syrah and estate Tempranillo. Our wines are available for purchase online or direct from our Tasting Room.

Intentionally Unconventional Here at VIDON, we are always learning and tinkering looking for new ways to do things more efficiently and to consistently produce high quality wines.

3 Intentionally Unconventional Here at VIDON, we are always learning and tinkering looking for new ways to do things more efficiently and to consistently produce high quality wines. We believe that winemaking begins in the vineyard, and we are proud of what our vineyard expresses each vintage. This allows us to be more scientific and unconventional in our winemaking practices, such as: Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality. EDWARD DEMING 1980 Using translucent, food-grade polyethylene oxygen-permeable tanks to age both red and white wines, along with oak and stainless steel. All VIDON wines are enclosed with screw caps and Vinoseal glass closures to ensure that the same wine is in the first bottle as in the last bottle, rather than leaving the final winemaking decision up to a piece of bark. The Tasting Room features a wine preserving and dispensing machine designed and built by Don. An argon tank pushes out and preserves wine up to two weeks, reducing waste.

After their home was built in the summer of 2003, Don and Vicki heard much buzzing while sitting on the

Upon looking under the deck, they discovered that an electrician had left a hole that led to the space

4 Why the Bee? The mascot at VIDON is the bee, featured on our labels, capsules and our logo. The property had an old well that housed a very large hive between its studs. After their home was built in the summer of 2003, Don and Vicki heard much buzzing while sitting on the deck one evening. Upon looking under the deck, they discovered that an electrician had left a hole that led to the space between floors. As they do every year, the new queen led a swarm looking for a new home and found that hole appealing. This experience resulted in many photos and a few stings, which led to our use of the bee on our packaging.

Don Hagge PhD OWNER, FARMER, PHYSICIST Don s vision for VIDON was shaped by two life experiences having been born and raised on a farm in North Dakota and living in France while doing post-graduate

5 Don Hagge PhD OWNER, FARMER, PHYSICIST Don s vision for VIDON was shaped by two life experiences having been born and raised on a farm in North Dakota and living in France while doing post-graduate physics research. As a result, he loves farming and Burgundy wines. This led to his plan to develop a small Willamette Valley vineyard with a winery that produced premium Estate Pinot Noir wines. Prior to making wine, Don s life experiences included the Navy, NASA and Silicon Valley. Don served two years during the Korean War as a Naval aviator. Upon leaving the Navy he attended UC Berkeley to complete an engineering degree, but switched to Physics when he met Ernest Lawrence. He continued his post-graduate work in Paris until he settled with NASA and the Goddard Space Fight Center, becoming Chief of the Physics Branch at the Manned Space flight center (now Johnson Space Center) for the Apollo program from Apollo 7 to Apollo 13. After leaving NASA, Don moved to Silicon Valley and entered the high-tech industry, where he founded several companies in the Northwest before landing back in the Willamette Valley. As a retirement project at the age of 69, Don bought and founded VIDON Vineyards, for which he continuously designs and manufactures equipment, such as inventing his own bottling line designed for glass stoppers. Don was the winemaker until 2017 and is currently our National Sales Department. In fact, you can still find Don on his tractor in the vineyard farming; that s where he finds his peace. To read more about Don s life experiences, visit our website:

6 Vicki Hagge OWNER With 2 PhD s in the winery/tasting room, there s no need to be seeking the limelight there s no limelight left! Vicki stays involved behind the scenes in the operations of VIDON with events, barrel sampling, bottling and harvest/crush. During the early phases of developing the property to farm grapes, Vicki came up with the name for the vineyard and the concept of using the bees of the VIDON property as a logo for the labels. After moving to Oregon from Wisconsin in 1975, Vicki s love for the beautiful northwest has been lasting and it makes sense that she and Don met skiing at beautiful Mt. Bachelor in Her business background was in procurement and contracts and spanned 35 years in public and private sectors, including Chemeketa Community College, Mentor Graphics, Enron Broadband, Mitsubishi Silicon American (SUMCO USA) and finally, Nike, Inc, before finally retiring in 2011 to take care of the household, gardens, pets, chickens and Don! Vicki s real love is art and has a degree in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She still does painting, drawing (primarily the figure) and some collage. You ll usually see Vicki feeding chickens or gardening or in the tasting room for open-house and event weekends.

7 Our Winemaking Philosophy Our garagíste Oregon winery practices minimal intervention in winemaking. Our intent is to capture the unique personality of the vineyard that evolves each vintage. Thus, all fermentations are indigenous. The grapes are picked by hand and delivered in small bins to the winery on the vineyard. The fruit is generally very clean when it arrives but it is hand-sorted again before passing into the de-stemmer and 1.5 ton fermentation tanks. After an initial cold soak (below 60 degrees) for three to five days to extract color and flavor from Pinot Noir s small, thin-skinned grapes, fermentation is allowed to occur spontaneously with indigenous yeasts. Once fermentation is established, the cap is punched down by hand, usually twice each day in the beginning and as needed thereafter. After fermentation is complete (usually seven to ten days), the red wines are pressed and allowed to settle for a few days before being moved into French oak barrels and then into the barrel room for aging and malolactic fermentation. Our production is between 1,500 and 2,000 cases annually. Although the focus is on premium Pinot Noirs, we also make Tempranillo, Syrah, Chardonnay and Viognier. Hagge: We are not unique, but we are different. I don t want any gimmicks. I just want to make good wine, charge fair prices and give folks a nice experience. At the beginning of 2017, Dr. David Bellows was hired as Winemaker, when Don was finally tired of digging out tanks.

8 David Bellows PhD WINEMAKER David actually found science through wine. He began his career working for famed New York City restaurateur Joseph Baum at Aurora Grille, where he managed the beverage program. After a series of similar restaurant positions, he decided to look into winemaking as a career and enrolled in the biochemistry program at the University of Arizona. He felt immediately at home, but found himself seduced away from wine by the shiny toys in the research labs, ultimately culminating in a PhD in Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Deciding to dance with who brung him he chose the wine yeast, saccharomyces cerevisiae as his model organism for his postdoctoral studies at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada. From there, he started his own research laboratory using yeast to study cellular detoxification at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. It took almost 20 years of international research, teaching, and grant writing to bring him back to his original goal: making wine. After a brief stopover at the Australian Wine Research Institute in Adelaide, he and his wife repatriated to the United States in 2011 where he began working harvests in the Willamette Valley and hasn t looked back since though he does continue to teach a few wine-related science courses at Chemeketa Community College Wine Studies Program.

9 The Vineyard Don adheres to the notion that winemaking begins in the vineyard. The VIDON Estate Vineyard has three Pinot Noir clones planted on its 20 acres in the Chehalem Mountains Clone 777, Clone 115 and Pommard. They all sit at an elevation between 400 and 500 feet, facing south towards the Red Hills of Dundee. The Oregon climate and soils are everything it s the terroir, Don reiterates. Chardonnay, Viognier, Syrah and Tempranillo are also planted in the vineyard. The Rhone varietal Syrah and Spanish Tempranillo are planted on the south-to-southeast site of the vineyard on early-ripening rootstock, a warmer site with rocky, shallow soil, lending confidence that both will reach full maturity. Approaching the sites scientifically, Don discovered that there were three diverse soil types on the site: Jory, Nekia and Willakenzie. This mix of volcanic and marine sedimentary soils offers lots of room for experimentation with the 3-Clones and Melange Pinot Noir blends. Since the 2014 crush, VIDON wines are made with 100% estate-grown fruit. The daily vineyard operations are managed by Chad Vargas, NewGenVineyard Services.

Our Wines Each vintage, VIDON produces their 3-Clones Pinot Noir, a blend of the three different clones of Pinot Noir planted in the vineyard Clone 777,

We also produce an Estate Chardonnay and a Barrel Select Pinot Noir, which represents our favorite barrels of the vintage.

10 Our Wines Each vintage, VIDON produces their 3-Clones Pinot Noir, a blend of the three different clones of Pinot Noir planted in the vineyard Clone 777, Clone 115 and Pommard, which are also bottled individually as clonal designates. We also produce an Estate Chardonnay and a Barrel Select Pinot Noir, which represents our favorite barrels of the vintage. Most recently, we launched our Space Exploration Series wines as a testament to Don s experience with NASA featuring a barrel select Chardonnay, estate Syrah and estate Tempranillo. Our wines are available for purchase online or direct from our Tasting Room.

Space Exploration Series In 2017, VIDON released a series of wines dedicated to Don s historic work on NASA s most iconic space programs as well as his love of elegant, terroir-driven wines.

The Apollo Chardonnay celebrates the manned moon exploration program that Don worked on as Chief of the Physics Branch from 1967 to 1970.

11 Space Exploration Series In 2017, VIDON released a series of wines dedicated to Don s historic work on NASA s most iconic space programs as well as his love of elegant, terroir-driven wines. Since 1999, he has applied his formidable intellect and training to growing and making wine at VIDON Vineyard. The results are as one might expect out of this world. The Apollo Chardonnay celebrates the manned moon exploration program that Don worked on as Chief of the Physics Branch from 1967 to Crafted from the best barrels of the vintage, this Burgundian-styled Chardonnay is worthy of its illustrious name. The Saturn Syrah is named for the powerful Saturn V rocket booster that launched the Apollo spacecrafts to the moon during Don s tenure at NASA. It is the most powerful rocket ever built, and our Rhone-style Syrah is a powerhouse in its own right. The Explorer Tempranillo is named for the iconic Explorer satellite program, where Don designed on-board instrumentation to measure solar & galactic cosmic radiation in ways not previously possible. The Explorer Tempranillo is also a trailblazer; it is exceedingly rare to find plantings in the Willamette Valley due to the climate. VIDON planted one of its warmest blocks to Tempranillo in 2010 and enjoyed a successful first harvest in 2015.

Depending on the season, visitors will learn about grape maturation, fermentation, élevage (aging) or bottling.

12 Tasting Room We cater to Oregon wine tasters who like to peek behind the curtain. The Tasting Room is located prominently within the production space of our winery, allowing guests to observe the winemaking process and taste the results. Depending on the season, visitors will learn about grape maturation, fermentation, élevage (aging) or bottling. Our tasting flights are structured thematically to highlight a specific attribute such as vintage variation or clonal differences. We also offer an unusual range of varietals grown on the property, including Syrah, Tempranillo and Viognier. VIDON doesn t have a traditional wine club. We want you to buy the wines you want when you want them. Instead, we have a loyalty program that rewards customers with discounts on wine for choosing to drink VIDON wines. All the benefits of a wine club without the hassle! At the end of 2018, Don hired Samantha Lau as Direct Sales & Marketing Manager to increase brand awareness and build customer relationships.

Samantha Lau DIRECT SALES & MARKETING MANAGER Wine was the last thing on Samantha s mind when she moved to Oregon to attend Linfield College, but being in the heart of wine country stole her heart.

13 Samantha Lau DIRECT SALES & MARKETING MANAGER Wine was the last thing on Samantha s mind when she moved to Oregon to attend Linfield College, but being in the heart of wine country stole her heart. Samantha got her first taste of the Oregon wine industry as an intern at the International Pinot Noir Celebration. She then worked in tasting rooms while finishing her Business Management degree, settling in the marketing department at one of Oregon s largest wineries, A to Z Wineworks, upon graduation. Her love of consumer wine marketing led her to complete her Masters of Arts in Strategic Communication at Washington State University (and people say they don t use their degrees ). Her experience in wine marketing spans from digital marketing to B2B trade marketing to point-of-sale development to marketing to websites to amateur video production to graphic design to wine bottle labeling to analytics - you name it, she s probably done it. One of her favorite things to do is to take data and transform it into easily readable and eye-catching charts and graph. In fact, she owns all four Edward Tufte books on the subject! Did you know? Samantha has a minor in Mathematics, so it makes sense that she found her way to VIDON with all the scientists!

14 Contact Us Media Contact Samantha Lau Direct Sales & Marketing Manager (503) Trade Contact Don Hagge Owner, Farmer, Physicist (503) Tasting Room Hours Open Thursday Sunday from 11am to 4pm or by appointment. Open Tuesdays and Wednesdays by appointment only. VIDON Vineyard, NE Hillside Drive, Newberg, Oregon (503)

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