Honey Bees Head Out – What a Week.

Hi Jean – please now this, about my cherry tree bees, as exactly one week later, at 3PM today, in sunny weather with low winds, they swarmed away from the extended branch and back into their new home behind the Pinot/Chardonnay block behind my home into the Pines and Firs, the forest, from which they came last week. I am …

May 5: Honey Bee Update

My native bees are thriving…this morning I put out a shallow dish of sugar water and there are 10 – 12 scouts sipping the water from the little sticks of wood I put out in the dish to keep them from drowning as they seek their nectar. Sprinkles of rain came at 3 AM this morning so I went out …

May 1st: Honey Bees Move into Cherry Tree

Hi Jean – what a surprising afternoon, today! I was just out from checking the vineyard shoots and soon flowers to be grape clusters in the vineyard behind my house and heard a loud, steady, increasing close hum and my west sky filled with buzzing honey bees.  Quickly went inside and shut my doors (always open) as coming my way …

Thanks for the wonderful letter, Tim!

Here’s a wonderful letter from one of our customers! Dear Jim, A quick story I’ll share with you that you might appreciate, and why I wanted to buy your wine….My wife and I, being transplanted newlyweds from Boston area living in Seattle, would go with friends to the Pinot region of Oregon quite often. In fact, we would go help …

Chardonnay Budwood for Block 8

Here is the beginning of the new planting of our vineyard’s Block 8 – that we are taking out this year. The budwood was made from cuttings of our wonderful Chardonnay 108 vines. I planted the old 108 vines behind the house 31 years ago while I was pregnant with Jim.

Jim & Loie Maresh Founders Award Presentation

In 1959, Jim and Loie Maresh drove from their home in Portland to Yamhill County, looking for a house with a view. They found a 27-acre hilltop orchard for sale outside Dundee and when the owner wouldn’t sell them the house with a view lot, they bought the entire property. And this is how they became farmers. Jim, a business …

Harvest 2015 Begins at Maresh Vineyard

Hi Jean – thank you for all your work for showing the seasons of the farm. Harvest 2015 started with pruning the vines in mid-January…. I might have two weeks from not having my crew (and making hot chocolate, burritos….) until the single shoot selection begins in mid-April. Here we go, again, and again… cutting off suckers from the ground, …

Jim Sr. Grapehoeing Block 10 in Maresh Vineyard

Hi Jean – Thank you for sending me the pictures of Dad on his tractor grapehoeing Block 10 last Friday. He was catching up on that last part of organic farming of weed removal before the rains came and my brother Joe’s grape hoe invention is Dad’s favorite tractor tool since 1985. Keeps Dad on the tractor and our vineyards …

Oregon Wine Industry Founder’s Award

Jim & Loie Maresh Honored as Pioneers The highlight of the 2015 Oregon Wine Symposium awards dinner was the presentation of the Founder’s Award to Jim and Loie Maresh for their sustained contributions to the Oregon wine industry’s success. Accepting the award, Jim Maresh spoke of the struggles to establish vineyards and wineries in the Willamette Valley. He described the …