Through the experience of visiting wineries to find a great story to tell, I see a lot of the same language as winemakers discuss their process of winemaking. It’s always interesting but as a solo traveler, we’re different. Being unique in the way we travel and often, the way we live, we can’t help but seek out rare and transformative encounters. I’m always looking to tell a unique story and on a visit to Antiquum Farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the story of their rebellious spirits in wine and in life, connected with the rebel in me. It’s exactly why it’s a prime spot for wine tasting for the solo traveler.
Antiquum Farm in Willamette Valley
Antiquum was my first stop after arriving at the Willamette Valley (it’s pronounced Willamette, Dammit!) and they set the bar pretty high so I wasn’t sure any place after would be able to top this experience.
Driving up the property you are surrounded by quintessential Oregon. Green trees, nature, blue skies, and fresh air.
This novice wine taster had what can only be described as an experience I’d like to recreate over and over and yes, over again. Drawing me further into that Pacific Northwest life, one where happiness glides over green rolling hills through vineyards and straight into your wine glass.
Transformative, Rogue, and Rebellious
Transformative and luxurious are just a few words I would use to begin describing Antiquum Farm. But ah yes, let us not forget my favorite term used by rebellious solo travelers everywhere, “rogue”. Stephen Hagen and his team don’t just know the word “rogue,” they live and breathe it and it begins with Antiquum’s Amazing “Why.”
I farm the way I do because that’s how I like it. I’m not drawn to tractors and big trucks. A perfectly crafted pile of compost ready to leave the barnyard for the Pommard block which was grazed by producers of said compost is poetry at Antiquum Farm. Wheat, grown in the vineyard, cut and piled in the vine rows smothers weeds. Poultry scratching for the wheat further weeds the vineyard returning the grain in fertilizer form to the vines. Complete cycles of life are the center of our growing philosophy. They are the reason Antiquum wines are richly distinctive and eloquent.”
-Stephen Hagen
Plain and simple. They farm the way they do because they like it. While Stephen sounds like my spirit animal, allowing poultry to scratch the wheat of the grounds where the vines grow instead of doing the routine work with big tractors and trailers, are where the true animals shine. Talk about going against the grain… no pun intended. I hadn’t even tasted the wine yet and was already drawn into Stephen’s personality and of Antiquum itself. Even the soil has personality.
They do not use outside fertilizers, synthetic or otherwise in their soil. Instead, Stephen uses methods by farming mentors and pre-1940’s agriculture.
Grazing Based Viticulture
In addition to poultry, flock of Katahdin/Dorper lamb
Oregon’s Wine Country is recognized as one of the premier Pinot noir producing areas in the world according to Willamette Wines. It has over 700 wineries but it’s easy to put Antiquum on a list all of their own.
Beer Me
If the way they harvest and produce wine doesn’t get you, the way they work through harvest season will. Who drinks beer between wine growing? These guys do. Let me tell you, I was there for wine but this beer is refreshing.
Stephen had so much incredible information to share that had me in complete awe of Antiquum but this might just be my favorite quote:
Our wines are not made. They are grown, cluster by cluster,
with my own hands. They are a marriage of a place, its people, and a moment in time.
And it is. You see, when I get to tell a story in order to express why a solo traveler should come visit a particular winery, I rely on the ability to express emotion through words in hopes to transcribe the feeling I felt when being in a particular place. That was not hard to do here.
The feeling of heart and soul and a deep passion for making incredible wines, their way, struck a chord with me and it will with any solo traveler. Wine tasting is so much more than just about the technical aspects. People want to know how they will feel when they arrive at a place you recommend. And at Antiquum Farm you’ll feel what happens when passion & pinot intertwine as Stephen Hagen says.
Located on a beautiful Oregon farm, surrounded by nature and people who are centered in providing their guests and customers with a piece of their dedication in each wine bottle, is something you can truly taste in their wines.
Rebellious, smart, and it shows. Talk about “doing what you want.”
I urge you to visit Antiquum. Their rogue winemaking process, their ‘why’, and of course their wines are why they’ll have my continual business. During my trip to Oregon’s Wine Country, I visited 21 wineries and I’ll say this, Antiquum is unlike anything you’ll ever experience, anywhere.
