Connected by love and wine: this is how this devoted couple has been running their vineyard for 52 years

When you’re thinking that of the strong and delicious bouquets of wine, one’s mind will drift to imagining the roaring hills in the guts of the Napa or Sonoma Valley. But Dexter and Marilyn Meadows turned that assumption the other way up by making a picturesque family winery and vineyard, Meadows Estatein the guts of the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon.

The couple has been married for 52 years, met at Tuskegee University in Alabama during college, and have been together ever since. Although they ran a successful real estate business within the South, recently after retiring they decided to embark on a brand new adventure: the wine business, specifically out west in Oregon. The glaring statistics surrounding vineyard ownership and entrepreneurship within the wine industry didn’t deter Meadows. According to African American Winemakers AssociationBlack winemakers represent lower than 1% of 11,500 wineries. In addition to its charming setting, Meadows Estate is special to locals and visitors since it is proudly Black-owned.

“What makes us unique is the shock and surprise on people’s faces after they discover that we own our vineyard. People tell us that it’s special, that we own it, because few black people own vineyards and wineries. I realize that these are young individuals who admire us,” Marilyn gushed.

The Meadows’ persistence and willingness to enter a brand new, competitive skilled arena was due partially to their personalities. Marilyn told me that her husband is trustworthy, kind and cares concerning the feelings of others, and Dexter shared the next words about his wife:

“My wife is just brilliant. She was smarter than me. I had to be sure that I had chosen someone who was definitely smarter than me. You need this to ground yourself. We were guided by the same values ​​in terms of what we were looking for in life,” he shared with ESSENCE.

He continued, “We shared traditional Southern values, and part of that was growing up in the same church and having faith.”

This belief led them to Oregon, where they found Meadows Estate Vineyard and Winery, in addition to their real estate experience and passion for discovering premier properties. “At first we weren’t looking for a vineyard, just another property,” Marilyn said. While looking for a business constructing, they encountered several problems, a very powerful of which was the COVID-19 virus. “We were looking for a commercial office building because we had been in the residential management business for over 30 years and were trying to downsize due to working with so many people. However, things started to change in the industry when the Covid-19 virus emerged; most people started working from home,” Dexter said.

Although it wasn’t the proper time to speculate in a conventional office constructing, Dexter was the right fit to make use of his knowledge of agriculture and construction. “We all the time had this aspiration, as my wife said, to purchase land due to my background in construction and agriculture. And I believed that in retirement we could do something like this on a smaller scale, and that is how we ended up with the vineyard. The idea was to purchase a small vineyard and perhaps sell the fruit,” he said.

Seeds planted several years ago led to the event of their vineyard, which has turn out to be famous throughout the country and in Oregon. Marilyn attributes the acquisition of the land to her destiny. “I think we were destined to find this property. The facility was and is very beautiful. That’s the first thing we noticed about him. It’s also 100 acres and the sunsets were gorgeous. I believe we were destined to find it as we had no problems with the property. This is our dream property. “I said, Dexter, this will be the Meadows estate.” Marilyn became lost in thought.

The Meadows will definitely include their two children in their business as well. “My son lives in Northern California and our daughter Angela lives here with us. She is very committed to making our name famous. He works in the financial industry. So he knows Los Angeles very well. He works closely with us, handling marketing strategy and social media. She is very hands-on and is becoming more familiar with the industry,” Marilyn said.

Like their love, their wines – Grenache, Merlot, Syrah and others (that are delicious, I need to add) are created on a solid foundation of fruit that is cultivated with time, precision and care over the years. “What excites me concerning the wine industry or winemaking is the vineyard-to-bottle perspective. This entire process is essential to producing great wine. You cannot make great wine in case you haven’t got good fruit,” Dexter said.

Dexter has a self-proclaimed old-school mindset in relation to staying committed to love, and that may extend to wine. “It starts from the very beginning. Once you decide who your partner will be, commit to him and don’t look back. Sure, there will be differences because you are different people. But whatever it is, you have to deal with it and move on. But it’s not hard if you’re committed to the same principles of family values.”