BRICK HOUSE FARM
Happy farmers choose surrender. They live comfortably with the knowledge that no matter what powers they have at hand, no matter what tools, no matter their resolve Mother Nature will prevail in her way at the end of the day. And given this truth, happy farmers choose to work alongside her. Instead of struggle, they marvel at the infinite complexity of her realm.
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“We view our farm as a living organism, an extension of ourselves, seeking balance and good health.”
In May of 1990 we made a pact with Mother Nature. We pledged to foreswear the range of herbicides and other powerful chemicals that were common in Oregon’s vineyards at the time. We sealed this pledge by certifying our entire forty acres for organic production.
We’re proud to say we honor that pledge today as a Demeter certified Biodynamic® farm. It’s on every bottle of every wine we produce. But it is far more than just an icon on the back label. Our decades-long commitment to the most natural farming practices we can conceive of is a commitment to a way of life.
It is what we do. But it is also how we think about what we do…our perceptions of the world around us…a state of mind. We view our farm as a living organism, an extension of ourselves, seeking balance and good health.
We accept that humans are but elements of nature’s all-embracing mysteries. We thrill at the complexities of fermentation, the transformation of grape juice into wine. We are in awe of the metamorphosis that occurs to cow dung buried in a horn over the winter and how that can enliven the billions of unseen creatures in our soil; microbes that are a vital part of the farm’s life force. Even the most troublesome pests are seen to have an important role…like the yellow jacket wasps that contribute to the multiplication and movement of our native yeast strains… the yeasts that give us wine.
We take our role as stewards of this plot of land seriously, intervening in Mother Nature’s system only occasionally and with a thoughtful, gentle hand. Over the years we have come to understand that when you chose a farm, you chose humility. It is a way of life with profound rewards.
