The Fizz #11: Kelley Fox connects to her winemaking, and to Pinot Noir, through spirituality
In this interview, Kelley Fox and I talk about her winemaking journey, the connection she has to her vineyards, and her thoughts around biodynamics.
For The Fizz #11, Oregon winemaker Kelley Fox and I talk over Zoom about biodynamic practices, how she has managed to avoid getting sucked into wine marketing, and her spiritual connection with winemaking. I visited Kelley Fox in her Oregon winery in 2018 and was absolutely taken aback by her energy, her devotion to her work, and her unapologetic authenticity. She’s incredibly unpretentious, welcoming, and warm. Kelley Fox has been making wine in Oregon for over 20 years and her emotional connection to her main grape, Pinot Noir, is palpable. I’m excited to share some of that with you in today’s newsletter.
Margot: You’ve been making wine in Oregon for quite some time. What brought you here?
Kelley: I’ve been in Oregon for 30 years and I started making wine over 20 years ago. The industry has changed a lot since I joined, and I certainly wasn’t near the original, or even the second original group. It’s been going on since the late 1960s—a small group of people who were visionaries, wild spirited, wild hearted, came here and decided to plant vines. Mostly, back then, it was farming—hazelnuts, mint—in fact, I originally moved here to start an organic farm with my brother and best friend. I ended up studying biochemistry, and then in 1994 I found myself drinking a lot of Oregon Pinots and Muller Thurgau and Marechal Foch. Money wasn’t my thing and those were on the cheap and local. I drank all this Oregon wine I and met who is now the father of my children, who was planting a vineyard at the time.
We moved to the vineyard in 1997 and I started working in that vineyard—tying canes to the wires, a harvest, not too much vineyard work. In the year 2000, I just knew I wanted to be a winemaker. The way I knew is the way I know most important things in my life, through visions. It was very different coming into the wine industry back then than what it is now. Today, you can get vineyard jobs—there are over 700 wineries in Oregon today. Now twenty years later, what I’d really like to do is go into the vineyards more. I’m more excited about that. I don’t drive the tractor or anything. I do canopy work and biodynamic sprays and things like that.
M: Can you talk about the vineyards that you work now? Do you lease them? Do you own them?
K: This is a question I get asked frequently. I get it more from my European customers than here. Perhaps, theres a history of—if you’re buying fruit and you’re a negociant, it’s possible that there’s more vigilance required. Over the years, though, I question the idea that ownership of land automatically translates to good stewardship of the fruit and wines. The factual answer is that most of my production is kind of like having an estate vineyard that I don’t actually own. For instance, at Maresh vineyard, I rent the vines. I’m leasing 11 acres at Maresh, and I pay for the farming, I’m responsible for all of the farming. By the time it’s picked, it’s already paid for. I have all the financial liability of an estate vineyard without the ownership.
The other vineyard where I get a lot of tonnage out of, for me, is the Weber vineyard and Vivian Weber bought some of that land originally from Jim Maresh. My acreage there, I pay for in the farming, and in advance of picking. The impact is much like an estate. There’s a little pit of per acre purchases, and maybe one per-ton purchase, but the volumes of that fruit are much smaller than the Maresh and Weber. It’s kind of a mix.
M: I think that here in the states, it’s interesting for us to see—how do people actually get access to land at all? Land is so expensive and hard to find. Are folks leasing, owning, working in a co-op? I feel like one positive thing is that we don’t look at people leasing or renting land as a bad thing in America—most often, it’s the only option that you have.
K: Yes, absolutely. There’s an important conversation we should be having about access to land and how we farm and who benefits. A long time ago through my studies, I was privileged enough to have studied post-colonialism and had a couple of high-impact times of learning. Maybe by reading books like The Death of Ivan Ilyich and studying some theology as an un-templed or un-churched child, I have a very leery relationship with money. Access to money when I was young would have meant accessing it through direct patriarchy methods. I decided to not be a slave to money very consciously. This is where I landed—I’m renting a bungalow still, I’m 55. I feel like no-one is clocking me or fucking with me, which is to me, wealth beyond wealth. Do I have money for land? I don’t. But I feel very very good about the work I do and the farms I make wine from, and my relationships with those people—they’re beloved to me. Taking land ownership out of the equation, I feel really good. It’s based on trust.
M: Can you tell me a bit about your values or philosophy in winemaking?
K: There are so many layers here. The superficial most outward philosophy is to make delicious wines that are expressing Oregon in a way that’s true to Oregon. I think that Pinot Noir does such a great job here with really detailed high relief songs and stories of this country. But they have to be delicious! [laughs] That’s important to me! I’m not here to impose pure principles onto drinkers of my wine if they’re not enjoyable or delicious. I can’t ask that from someone. Life is such a gift, and so short, and so messy and beautiful. I don’t want to just be cerebral in my approach to making wine so that, for instance, I say “oh I did it by this method and it has this or that stamp of farming or methodology therefore I did everything right, so you should buy my wine". That’s all good, but the wine has to be delicious. I know, that’s just a crazy thing!
Do people have audiences? I start to wonder about that over the years. My audience is humanity. Without me pushing it on them or selling it, my audience is people who want to taste Oregon and are open to that, no matter who they are. I don’t know how to better explain that. To segue from that, I can say that this work for me is very spiritual. It’s such an over-used word and I think words would imprison it. I keep humanity and Earth in mind in this relationship that I don’t understand and can’t describe. I know that the relationship between the Earth and all the things on the Earth is very important to me, and I want people to feel those ties in a place of homecoming when they drink the wines. Do I personally do that? No, I fucking do not.
The first many years of learning to make wine, I learned to make wine. I learned to solve problems—the packaging, the fork lifting, the repairing of stuff, learning about vineyards, learning about wines. Over time I became a bit more fluent in all those things so I could use that space for things that are nameless. I started drinking wines from other parts of the world, being friends with other producers in different regions, not learning by saying “hmm how did you make this wine?” but by spending time with people, putting my feet in the earth in their farms, drinking it and letting it come in and making space for it. Not having goals of “oh I’m making space for this so I’ll be a better winemaker”.
M: I’m called by this memory I have of going to visit you and you talking about the trees outside and how their energy helped the wine, noticing how spiritually connected to the work that you do. I think that’s what makes you such an exciting winemaker.
K: It’s hard to talk about all of this, really. The important thing is that the wine is delicious and for the heart, no matter who that person drinking it is.
M: I’d love to touch on your methods—I know you use some biodynamic practices but you don’t call yourself a biodynamic winemaker.
K: Yeah, we’re not supposed to say we’re a biodynamic wine or vineyard unless they’re certified by Demeter. When I say I use biodynamic preps, I won’t say that it’s biodynamic wine to respect their organization. Technically, the only biodynamic wine I’ve made was when I was making Momtazi vineyard as a certified biodynamic wine with certified fruit. The first time I was introduced to biodynamic farming was actually with Steiner’s book Education Toward Freedom, after I had my two girls.
In 2001, I was blind tasting with some friends and there was this Syrah trial, and I didn’t know what were testing. I was trying these different Syrahs and I remember one of the wines was absolutely alive, and I remember writing that down in my notes. Back then no-one used that word about wine, really. Later on I discovered that was a biodynamic wine. The way it touched me, it was like my nervous system lit on fire. At that point, there was no turning back. Some wines have the magic and some are delicious but don’t. I don’t know what that magic is. Have you read NK Jemisin yet? I just finished The Fifth Season and she talks about the silver threads—it’s life, it’s magic. I just felt that.
I had a friend, Jimmy Brooks, he started a biodynamic group in Oregon—I joined the group, read the book, Weeds and What They Tell Us, things like that, I went all in. I went back to some of the things I learned in physics and quantum physics, from studying astrology, from taking mushrooms [laughs], and found my own way over the years. It’s really to me, personally, I found it to be more about, as long as you’re farming in a not harmful way, it’s a good thing.
In 2008, I wanted to do some biodynamic farming at Maresh so I went to Jim Maresh and gave him my idea. He had a twinkle in his eye and said well, okay. I got to put my big huge stinkin’ shit pile at the border of the farm—it literally was an organic cow farm spraying shit at the back of the truck. I tended it and tended it, and it was time to put the stuff in the vines. I was like yes! Talk about saviorism, though, seriously! [laughs] I started digging out the soil and all these earthworms and life started coming out of every hole I dug. I went back to Jim and said thank you for letting me discover on my own that your vineyard is entirely alive and doesn’t need any outside “help”. There was nothing wrong with the vineyard! The ego can bring itself into everything. All farms aren’t the same. We laughed our butts off and I stopped doing that bullshit. This was bullshit there, by the way, I’m not putting down biodynamics as a whole—this isn’t a blanket statement. I started using BD-500 and BD-501 with my little backpack. I’ve been doing this since 2008, but guess what’s healing what? Those vines are healing me, it’s not the other way around. It’s my way of acknowledging each vine.
Some years I prune a little bit. I prune by the moon there and those cuts need to be made in a short period of time because the moon changes a lot, and quickly. I do'n’t prune the whole vineyard because it’s impossible for me to do that in one day. I do canopy work—I pull leaves in some of my blocks. Last year I selected every cluster that was going to be picked in advance of harvest. Each cluster was one I wanted. I’m very involved, but I can’t do that across 25 acres. If I could, I would.
M: You’re a person who doesn’t employ a lot of help in the winery. Why is that?
K: I want to be clear that when I say I farm Maresh vineyard, there’s a vineyard manager and his team doing most of the work. I just saunter on in and do my little whatever—they work with me on that. I don’t do all of that work, I just do what I can. It takes me like a week to do one pass. There wasn’t a lot of help when I started making wine and we didn’t get paid very much—delegating wasn’t an option for me and I had to do a lot. I became very very efficient and worked a lot of hours. I learned how much I could do with no help except for bottling and harvest based on my head winemaker jobs, and that’s about the amount of wine I’m making now. Usually about 3400 cases per year—I can do that with some help during harvest and bottling.
The reason, it’s hard to articulate without sounding holier-than-thou. All the nuances and smells, all the teeny things before they’re a thing—I know what those are. If there’s someone else doing, things will be missed. The point is not to go in and put fires out. The point is to listen. I’m a responding winemaker, not a creative winemaker. To respond, you have to observe, you have to be there, and it has to be me because otherwise I’d be doing corrections or steerings. I want the vineyards to speak for themselves. Everyone puts that on their wine pages now, but I really mean that. Sometimes being there means not being there—restraining yourself to give them space. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself. I’ve worked mostly in solitude for a long time, and it’s just nice. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have dear friends working with me in the vineyards and winery sometimes, and that collaboration is good. Sometimes people are so enthusiastic and extraverted and wonderful, but anytime I find myself talking, it takes my attention away from the void that I need to be in. It’s just the way I work.
M: You work mostly with Pinot Noir, can you tell me what that’s like?
K: Well, I think at its very truest nature, Pinot Noir isn’t like Pinot Noir at all. It’s the vineyard, it’s the place. That’s what is so unique about Pinot Noir. For me, I can’t imagine a more nervy, truthful, vulnerable, beautiful, and powerful at the same time, grape to work with. It’s my teacher, it’s my child, it’s something in the stars, it’s Mother Earth, it’s all these things together for me. At home, I don’t drink much Pinot Noir—it’s often disappointing. There’s no putting things under the rug with Pinot Noir. It’s going to mirror everything. It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s that we are. It’s so complex and elegant and simple at the same time. I don’t drink my own wines.
M: Wow, really?
K: Oh, no, no. Yeah, it goes through and out. I can’t just go back. Life is flow and movement and going forward. That time is already passed for me, and I need to focus on now. I enjoy other peoples’ wines. Lately, I drink a lot of white wine.
M: How do you decide to do something different in the winery? For example, when you made that Pinot Gris in concrete—how did you know to take that step?
K: [laughs] It was based on no thinking at all, it was as reckless as that. Sonoma Cast Stone sent me this ad in my email. I saw it, it was in the shape of a uterus—not an egg! And I said you know what, I’ll take that Pinot Gris. Normally, I don’t work with Pinot Gris. I do rash things sometimes. I told someone in an interview about six months ago, asked me if I’d ever consider doing Riesling, and I went on this long diatribe about not being qualified and I’d never do it, and now I think I’m going to do it. It came to me! It’s a tiny bit at Maresh vineyard. I’ll make a little bit and the rest will go in the Nerthus. I didn’t seek it out—it came to me. Sometimes things come to me, and that means that is my moment.
M: It was there for you! So cool that you’re doing it.
K: Oh, I’m so doing it. It’s 1970 self-rooted, and it’s right next to my old block which goes into my favorite Maresh bottling. I’ve been looking at the White Riesling block—they call it White Riesling, so cute—I’m just going to make maybe 60 cases and Martha is doing it too. We’re going to collab.
M: I’m so excited to try it!
K: Thank you! I haven’t even told anyone yet—you’re the first to know.
M: Thank you so much for your time. I hope sometime soon we can meet and cheers in person.
————
Non-profit pairing: Kelley supports Higher Heights Leadership Fund, an organization “building a national civic engagement infrastructure and network to strengthen Black women’s leadership capacity”. Support this important org here.
You can support Kelley Fox by buying her wines from her website, or from your local wine shop. Stay tuned into what Kelley is up to by following her on Instagram. I truly hope you seek out her wines—they’re magical, and easily some of my favorite Pinot Noir I’ve had.
Liked this interview? Hit subscribe and help me record more information about exciting winemakers, American history, and so much more. Paid subscriptions are just $5/month or $50/year, and 20% goes to St. Francis House. If you share this piece with a friend, it would mean a lot. Thanks for reading, and I’d love to hear your ideas and feedback for future issues! You can follow me on Instagram here, and sign up for wine classes here.