Oregon Wine Reopens Pt 3
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. 28 Oregon counties have moved to the next phase of coronavirus recovery, allowing winery tasting rooms to reopen.
And, Oregon Wine Board’s Sally Murdoch says since this is May, it’s the perfect month, almost, for the reopening …
MURDOCH … “Oregon Wine Month is May and, for the time being, we have cheekily renamed it Oregon Inside Wine Month because we were all enjoying wine inside, but now we’ll just refer to it, probably, as Oregon Wine Month.”
In addition to Oregon Wine Month, Murdoch says wine lovers will be rewarded with a special loyalty program, called ‘Oregon Wine Perks’ …
MURDOCH … “That is, people across the world who buy $250 in Oregon wine can send their receipts in and, it’s mostly going to effect people who know that they’re travelling to Oregon, which who knows at this point, but people in Oregon that are buying Oregon wines, you become a part of the Wine Perks program and then you unlock all the VIP experiences and then you get to use those until April of next year.”
But, Murdoch says there’s no rush …
MURDOCH … “Just trying to remind them to be real cautious and then open when they’re ready at a pace they’re comfortable with. And, then also customers, call before going out to wine country because so many would be coming from counties, like Multnomah County where we still have a stay-at-home order, we still should be staying and not going to wine country necessarily. It’s really the lifting of restrictions on people that live in the counties to be visiting wineries within those counties.”
Murdoch reminds us all to be patient and err on the side of caution with a gradual return to normalcy.
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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.
