The Chronicle
Latest dispatches
21 results across all types
- news
Micah and Nate: Selling and Making Biodynamic Wine
I am excited to share new podcast episodes that share the stories of how two people arrived in the winery trade by very different paths. I find that most passionate wine professionals had a rainbow of visions for their future before wine became that future. While wine may be made in the vineyard, it is also made by people. It is also sold by people. Too often, we separate the two, but the combination of plants and people makes our world at Troon Vineyard . In our Troon Talk Conversations, we tell those stories. Nate Winters arrived at Troon after a stint in the U.S. Army, where he spent his time jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Afterward, a brief interlude waiting on tables led him to a tasting room job at Troon, where he moved up the ranks, becoming tasting room manager. Then he spent a year working in our Biodynamic cellar and vineyard before taking over as director of sales. In addition, he achieved the rank of Certified Sommelier from the Court of Master S
- news
Winegrowing in Oregon's Applegate Valley, a Conversation with Master Viticulturist Jason Cole
To paraphrase Dr. Suess, From there to here, from here to there, gambling things are everywhere Gambling seems to have overtaken the world, and it’s hard to find something you can’t bet on. Every sports event is awash in ads for gambling apps. Casinos are now everywhere and you can even bet on if the pitcher was going to throw a curve or a fastball. Some even made money on betting if we were going to war or not. By all accounts, the easy availability of gambling is causing all sorts of social ills. None of these opportunities tempts me to risk my money, as my job involves gambling. I’m not a dealer or a croupier—I work in agriculture. In farming, like in casinos, the house, or, in our case, Mother Nature always wins. Like all gamblers, our mission is to improve our odds against the house. As a Biodynamic winery , we strive to work in harmony with nature rather than against it. Industrial chemical farming cheats to beat the house. That’s a good way to end up, in Godfather speak, sleepin
- news
The Farm at the Table
The farm-to-table concept is in vogue in the restaurant world. We go beyond that at Troon Vineyard & Farm , where the farm and the table are just minutes apart. During last Sunday’s Garden to Guest lunch, Chef Carl realized he needed more daikon for his Cover Crop Salad on the menu. He walked out the back door of the kitchen and picked some, and five minutes later, he was slicing the daikon fresh out of the ground. At Troon , the farm and the table are inseparable. Farm-to-table and food-and-wine matching are fashionable and promoted by restaurants, but at Troon, everything we grow arrives at the table together, reflecting our Biodynamic® and Regenerative Organic Gold Certified® farming, winemaking, and cooking. Our wines intertwine with the food we grow when you dine at Troon. The Biodynamic ideal of the whole farm as an organism arrive to our guests as they experience The Troon Table . Troon’s chef-in-residence, Carl Krause, is in daily contact with our farmer and vinegar maker, Jenn
- news
A Conversation with Garett Long: Biodynamic Soil Scientist
Garett Long has a superpower. He is a true believer. The energy he draws from that inspiration directly translates into the quality and nutrition of the crops he grows. Garett’s true beliefs encompass two systems that many assume are mutually exclusive – Biodynamics and science. The intertwining of Biodynamics and science is the core of our daily agricultural practice at Troon Vineyard & Farm. Almost every week, I run across another article that brings modern agricultural science closer to the concepts behind Biodynamics. The vocabulary may be different, but the problems they address are the same. One major difference is that commercial agricultural science is focused on patenting products to sell for profit. Other than investing your own time and labor, the Biodynamic preparations are free if you grow and harvest them yourself. It’s tough to get big companies behind products without an ROI. Mycorrhizal fungi, soil and plant microbiome, silica for cell wall strength and pest resistance
- news
A Harvest 2025 Retrospective
It takes a few months after harvest to assimilate everything that happened and to begin to look towards the next vintage. We analyze the effectiveness of our vineyard strategies and formulate our farming in our constant quest for improvement. The wines themselves are just beginning to reveal their personalities as they slowly complete malolactic fermentation. It is only now, months after we picked the last grape, that we can more completely understand what our partnership with nature has created. In this episode of our podcast, Troon Vineyard winemaker Nate Wall and assistant winemaker Micah Wagner discuss the known and unknown aspects of being Biodynamic winemakers. Biodynamic wines are created in nature’s continuum, in which humans are only here to support, not control. This discussion will give you an inside look at how differently Biodynamic winemakers think about their craft.
- news
Nature's Hide and Seek
The Troon winery during harviest “In ‘ Ten Keys to Reality’ by Frank Wilczek . Complementarity, as described by Wilczek, underscores the intricate and interconnected nature of the quantum world, where seemingly contradictory properties can coexist and enrich our understanding of the universe. In the dance of quantum mechanics, we find that the more we try to pin down certain properties of particles, the more elusive others become. It's as if reality is playing hide-and-seek with us, revealing itself in glimpses of complementary truths” There are a lot of very certain people in the world. They know all the answers. Another thing they all have in common is that they are wrong quite a bit of the time. Another commonality is that this does not deter them from thinking that they know all the answers. They need to replace that commonality with complementarity. A popular pastime for certain people is trashing Biodynamics. They don’t realize that Nature is playing hide and seek with us. They d
- news
Harvest 2025
Sorting syrah at Troon in Oregon’s Applegate Valley I keep finding earwigs in my hair – and everywhere else for that matter. My right hand looks like a red balloon from a Yellowjacket sting. My feet hurt and I'm sticky everywhere. It must be harvest season again. I love it. Dawn breaks with the snip, snip, snip sound of picking crews starting to hand-harvest our grapes. It has been a Goldilocks-type vintage, not too hot – just right. While each vintage is always a learning experience, this is particularly amplified for us at Troon , as our youngest blocks are producing their first crop – our first lesson – while our other blocks mature and continue to educate us about their individuality. While stressful and exhausting, each harvest shares our hopes and vision for the wines we will create. Making wine is a unique combination of farming and an almost industrial production method. Processing grapes can be like working on an assembly line. Half-ton bins of grapes arrive one after another,
- news
An Honor
I am honored and humbled by wine writer Jeff Kralik's take on my Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Nomination! Craig Camp: Champion of Sustainable Winemaking Posted on September 24, 2025 by the drunken cyclist In a world that seemingly has decided to focus on the negative, I tend to relish every bit of good news that comes across one of my various screens. A handful of days ago, however, I did not have to search far as some great news was waiting for me in my in-box. Craig Camp has been nominated for a Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Award, for Environmental Advocate of the Year. While surely I would be considered by some as relatively “new” to the wine world, I can say without equivocation that I know of no more deserving person than Craig Camp. Here is the link to his article.
- news
Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Environmental Advocate of the Year Award
“ Environmental Advocate of the Year Craig Camp Troon Vineyard | Grants Pass, OR In 2016, Craig Camp left his job in the Napa Valley and moved north to Oregon’s Applegate Valley, a quiet area near the California border. Under the Regenerative Organic Alliance’s mantra “farm like the world depends on it,” Camp cares for cider apples, hay fields, honey bees, sheep, chickens, dogs, and grape vines. Camp and the Troon Vineyard team are reviving old, overworked vineyards to make an example out of what responsible agriculture can produce, work that has earned Troon the title of the world’s only Demeter Biodynamic and Regenerative Organic Certified Gold winery. Camp’s deep commitment to fighting climate change extends to advocacy—he’s a member of the board of directors at the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance. ” — The Wine Enthusiast The Wine Enthusiast Wine Star Awards 2025 - click here for the complete list of nominees I could not be more honored to be nominated for the new Wine Enthusiast
- news
Ranger to Ranger: The Rhône Rangers
I belong to many wine trade organizations including the Applegate Valley Vintners Association, the Rogue Valley Vintners, and the Oregon Winegrowers Association. I had a similarly long list when I worked in the Napa Valley. Each of these organizations are defined by a place. Then there are the Rhône Rangers . The Rangers diverge from these place-based organizations as the Rhône Rangers are defined by the varieties they grow. To be a Rhône Ranger wine, 75% of the wine’s content must include one or more of the twenty-two traditional Rhône grape varieties as approved by the French government for the wines of the Côtes du Rhône, with Petite Sirah tacked on because of its early contributions in the American wine industry. So the Rhône Rangers are not defined by a place, but by an ideal—a belief in the unique characteristics of these classic Southern French varieties as expressed in American vineyards. The members of the Rhône Rangers span the continent, not an AVA. In this episode of the Wi
- news
Certified: A Biodynamic Deep Dive with Evrett Lunquist
The foundations for Biodynamic farming combine intentionality with the concept of your farm as a unique integrated organism. That includes the farmers. A guiding principle is to bring as few inputs as possible that are not produced on your farm. That’s our goal. In January, the Troon Vineyard team spent two days planning—only planning. The entire farm team focused on being better farmers and stewards of our land. Last Friday, the team took time to review progress. In our hands during all these planning sessions were our Biodynamic calendars. Our planning was focused on both making and applying the Biodynamic preparations. Informed by our calendars, we made our plans. I have practiced Biodynamic farming since 2018 and aspired to it for years before that. Few types of agriculture are more misunderstood, and, to a large extent, that's the fault of the Biodynamic community. Community is not the right word, as Biodynamic practitioners are a diverse group ranging from full-on spiritual anthr
- news
Wine Words
Episode One, Two and Three: A Deep Dive into Winemaking - 1: White Wines, 2: Red Wines, 3: Troon Wines There are a lot of adjectives used to describe winemaking these days. While much emotion is used in debating them, all are inadequate in one way or the other. Some of the most common are: Industrial Designed wines that use all the tools and additives available to create a product to satisfy a specific group of consumers. They are constructed like any mass consumer brand, like soft drinks, snacks, and all ultra-processed food products, and made by committees, marketers, and accountants more than winemakers. The wine shelves in your grocery store are full of them. These wines are interchangeable and better categorized as beverage alcohol rather than wine as they have the same relationship to grapes that Doritos have to corn. Conventional Often wrongly confused with industrial wines, which some certainly are, these are the wines many medium and small wineries produce. Most of these winem
- news
Farm Life
The foundation of Biodynamic farming is that the farm itself is a living organism. Every living element of the farm intertwines to become one. We tend to focus on plants, wildlife, and soil, but the humans who work the farm are part of the energy that makes each farm distinct. Work on a Biodynamic farm flows with the seasons. During the cold and damp of winter, we repair and prepare for the growing season. Then, as the weather warms and the buds burst, the labor required also explodes. More help is needed, not just simple labor, but strong backs willing to work with the intentionality that connects Biodynamic farming to the power of nature itself. That is why we have an intern program at Troon Vineyard & Farm. Now, interns will join the farm team during the summer months. We have had wine harvest interns for many years, as it is part of an aspiring winemaker’s education to work harvests at many wineries as they hone their skills. We are excited to offer a similar program to aspiring Bi
- news
Troon Talk Podcast: Harvest 2024
New Troon Talk Podcast Episode: Harvest 2024 with assistant winemaker Micah Wagner and winemaker Nate Wall!
- news
Going Native
The native gardens at Troon Vineyard & Farm came to be as naturally as the plants in them. A bit of serendipity along with good karma introduced Troon winemaker Nate Wall to Suzie Savoie of Klamath-Siskiyou Native Seeds and our native garden project was born. What started as a small garden continues to expand to every corner of our farm, and integrating plants native to Southern Oregon is now an essential element of our farming philosophy. Biodiversity is fundamental to biodynamic agriculture as it mirrors the systems that have evolved in nature. We are always seeking a natural balance in our work and from our farm’s produce. While biodiversity is required to be Demeter Biodynamic® Certified , we felt it was essential to go beyond the minimum requirements of certification to achieve our quality goals. It is not enough to simply be diverse. As you will learn in this podcast, to create a more native natural system, you must plant the right plants in the right place. What started as a sma
- news
Farm Like the World Depends On It
In this episode of Troon Talk, we welcome special guest Elizabeth Whitlow, executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, and Garett Long, Troon Vineyard and Farm director of agriculture. The Regenerative Organic Alliance’s slogan is “ Farm like the world depends on it,” which it does. Slogans are a lot easier to write than do. It has been a growing experience at Troon Vineyard & Farm —which seems appropriate—to be an early adopter of the Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC) — the second winery in the world, and now, one of four farms globally to achieve Regenerative Organic Gold Certified® status. It has been a transformational experience. A few were alpha testers; we were beta testers, and today, there are millions of Regenerative Organic certified acres. What once was only an idea is becoming a movement. The keywords are, of course, regenerative and organic. You must be USDA organically certified to apply to be Regenerative Organic Certified. Organic is the baseline, b
- news
Eat a Peach
A Biodynamic peach harvested from Troon Vineyard & Farm’s food forest Decades ago, on my first visit to Italy, while having lunch at a winery in Piemonte, they presented us with their farm’s peaches for dessert. It was an event that opened my eyes — and palate. I had never tasted anything so expressive, so pure, so beautifully simple. Fortunately, I was ready to comprehend the experience. I was still new to the wine business then, but I had been learning how to taste — to focus for several years. I was ready to appreciate that peach. There are many things we eat that taste good, but few that make our life more complete—both in experiences and our quality of life. Flavors like that take me back to my grandparent’s farm . They were organic farmers and never even knew it. My memories of the flavors of my grandmother’s cooking still inspire me. That peach in Italy gave those memories back to me. As Biodynamic farmers, we often discuss the environment and soil health, but the greatest gift
- news
Blending at Troon: Part 2
Troon Vineyard winemaker Nate Wall and assistant winemaker Micah Wagner continue to discuss how we create our Druid’s and Ascendent Blends.
- news
New Podcast: The Druid's Blends - Blending at Troon Part One
In this episode, we introduce new assistant winemaker Micah Wagner, and then Micah and Troon winemaker Nate Wall discuss making Troon Vineyard's Druid's Red, White, and Pink Biodynamic Blends. In part 2, to follow shortly, they dig deeper into the art and science of blending in winemaking. Troon Vineyard Druid's Red Druid's White Druid's Pink
- news
The Wine Soundtrack Podcast
It was a great pleasure to be interviewed by Allison Levine on her Wine Soundtrack Podcast
- news
Tart Troon: Biodynamic Red Wine Vinegar
Winemaking is the art of preventing grape juice from becoming vinegar, but for us, our winegrowing is more a novel than a short story. Making vinegar is the next chapter in the story of Troon Vineyard. Wine and vinegar are sequential expressions of our Biodynamic viticulture. As part of the same plot, we are crafting our vinegar with the same intentionality and aspiration as our wines. That and we thought it would be fun. It is. Jennifer Tiesl , part of our farm team and, has taken on this new project with the zestiness a vinegarist should have. Jennifer’s first step was to reach out to an amazing local resource— Kirsten Shockey , Applegate Valley resident, renowned fermentation expert, and author of Homebrewed Vinegar , among many other books. Kirsten has also co-founded the Fermentation School . Together, they’ve built our vinegar works. In this episode of our podcast , Jennifer and Kirsten discuss how we have moved this project forward as we prepare to release our first Troon Vineya