Oregon Wine Reopens Pt 1
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. Like much of the hospitality industry, tasting rooms at wineries around the northwest have been shut down for on-premise business for nearly 2 months.’
But last Friday, May 15th, tasting rooms in 28 Oregon counties were given the green light to reopen, albeit carefully, for customers …
MURDOCH … “The 28 counties don’t have the bulk of the tasting rooms, with the exception of Yamhill county. So, there’s 800 wineries in Oregon.”
But, Oregon Wine Board’s Sally Murdoch says like everything else in our coronavirus reality, the tasting room game has changed as well …
MURDOCH … “So, we have different tasting room guidelines. We’ve got the one’s that the governor laid down, things like determine maximum occupancy to maintaining physical distancing, yeah got that, tables are at least 6-feet apart, masks are worn by employees, but are suggested to be worn by customers.”
Murdoch says the wineries have been on top of this …
MURDOCH … “Then we had a task force within wineries across the state, and that was called the Governor’s Task Force, and they set some guidelines that are even more stringent than what the governor had called for.”
So, we’ll be wearing masks while tasting the wine? …
MURDOCH … “Ha, I hadn’t even thought about that, but yes it does seem like it. So, you would walk in, I guess to a tasting room, have your mask on, make sure that it, that you’ve got 6-feet between you and the next person, and then I’m sure you’d just take your mask off. But, that’s a good idea. There should be something, sort of a straw or something.”
Listen tomorrow for more on the reopening of wine tasting rooms in Oregon.
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BL: Welcome back to another “Fruit Bites” brought to you by Valent U.S.A. With us again is Valent’s Allison Walston. And this week Allison, let’s talk about those MURDER HORNETS!
AW: Can you believe it? Living during a pandemic and 2020 is like, hold my beer, bring in the murder hornets. But this isn’t a meme or the Hunger Games. Currently no murder hornets, actually called Asian giant hornets, have been found in the US or Canada in 2020. One nest and one dead hornet were found in fall of 2019.
BL: ok, so there aren’t any in WA state, but do they really murder people in Asia?
AW: There have been some casualties but mainly the alert was to notify citizens so they could be on the lookout, just in case. If you fear bees & wasps, now is a great time to learn to identify bees vs yellow jackets vs the Asian giant hornet. There are great resources at both Oregon and Washington’s Dept of Ag. If you’re homeschooling kids, try this as one of their STEM lessons. My nephew loved it!
BL: Well, thanks Allison. Join us again next time for Fruit Bites, brought to you by Valent. Until then, I’m Bob Larson.
