Red Hills of Dundee give rise to olive venture
By John Schmitz,
There’s a brand new crop springing up in the famous Red Hills of Dundee, and you don’t need a corkscrew to enjoy it.
Oregon Pinot noir, which was first planted in the Red Hills in the mid-1960s, has been highly regarded around the world ever since wines from the newly assigned Willamette Valley sub-appellation first won international acclaim in the late 1970s.
Now, winegrape growers Ken and Penny Durant, owners of Red Ridge Farms/Durant Vineyards, are using those same soils to grow a Spanish variety of olive called Arbequina.
Durant and his wife, Penny, who grow grapes for some of Oregon’s best-known wineries and also operate a specialty plant nursery, became highly interested in growing olives for oil a few years ago.
They followed that fascination to California olive country and eventually connected with Xavier Marques, executive director of NursTech Inc., a Gridley olive tree nursery specializing in olives.
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Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 9:18 pm under
