Pouring Purpose (and Pinot's Rivals): Meet the Trailblazing Winery Championing Queer Joy and Earth-Friendly Sips
Every once in a while, a winery is born not just from a deep love of wine, but from a lifetime spent watching community truly take shape around a table. Remy Wines is one of those special places. It’s the life’s work of winemaker and powerhouse community builder Remy Drabkin, and her story is the perfect one to highlight this April as we celebrate sustainability, environmental stewardship, and the people seriously shaking up what a climate-conscious winery can be.Remy’s dedication to the planet is visible everywhere—from the vineyard rows to the very foundations of her buildings. She didn't just build a new winery; she transformed an old tractor barn using reclaimed materials, designed the roof to capture and reuse rainwater, and even helped invent the pioneering Drabkin-Mead carbon-negative concrete formula. This innovation doesn't just lock away CO₂ beneath the cellar floor, it’s also shared openly so other businesses can shrink their own carbon footprint, too.
A Winemaking Kid with a Grand Vision
Remy’s wine story began early. Growing up in McMinnville, she was surrounded by the founding legends of the Willamette Valley wine industry—folks who made wine by hand and believed a small town could produce world-class wine. By the time she was eight, Remy already knew her path, a conviction that only deepened as she spent her teenage years working harvests with Oregon icons like Ponzi and Erath.After high school, Remy chased the art and science of winemaking from France to Pittsburgh. She returned home in 2003 to run the laboratory at Argyle Winery, and just a few years later, she launched her own winery at the age of 25. Her focus? Italian varietals, heavily influenced by the Italian immigrant families she grew up around. After three years of success with Italian grapes, she started planting the Three Wives Estate with Pinot Noir, Lagrein, and Pinot Gris.
An Italian Heartbeat in Pinot Country
From day one, Remy Wines has been a beautiful act of defiance. In a valley synonymous with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Remy deliberately chose a different route, one that nods to the foothills of the Alps and the hills of Tuscany just as much as it does to the Dundee Hills outside her door.Today, Remy Wines is the place to find northern Italian varieties thriving in the Pacific Northwest: Lagrein, Dolcetto, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, and other “outlier” grapes that rarely get center stage in Oregon. These aren't your typical fruit-forward wines; they’re crafted in a distinctly Old-World style—structured, age-worthy, and unapologetically honest about their origins.While the original label focuses on single-varietal, northern Italian expressions, other labels like Three Wives and the Black-heart/Goldstar bottlings offer fun blends, sparkling wines, and even Super Tuscan–inspired cuvées that let Remy explore new ideas while keeping that vital Italian heartbeat pulsing.
A Winemaker, an Activist, and a Mayor!
For Remy, making great wine and making positive change have always been two sides of the same coin. After more than a decade in public service, she has channeled that same grounded, adventurous spirit from the winery into her civic life, eventually becoming McMinnville’s first woman and first openly queer mayor. Talk about punching above your weight!Beyond city hall, Remy co-founded Wine Country Pride, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring Pride celebrations reach rural Oregon communities. Remy Wines also hosts the annual Queer Wine Fest, a joyful, nationally recognized celebration that honors diversity and belonging in the wine world by centering wines made or grown by queer people.In Remy’s world, a winery isn’t just a business, it’s a powerful platform. It’s a way to model how to put equity and environmental responsibility at the center of every decision and still produce beautiful, age-worthy wine.
The Mission in the Glass
Remy Wines’ mission is poured right into every glass and is visible down to the very concrete underfoot: from the adaptive reuse of that old tractor barn to the pioneering Drabkin-Mead carbon-negative concrete that has locked away over five tons of CO₂ beneath the winery floor.The mission is also alive in how the winery shows up for its community. At its core, this mission is all about:
Elevating the Underdogs: Proving that the Willamette Valley is big enough for more than one story about what wine should be by championing Italian and emerging grapes.
Centering Community: Creating a space where queer people, women, and historically excluded communities aren't just welcomed, but actively centered—on the label, at the table, and in leadership roles.
Championing Change: Using the winery’s success as a force for justice, sustainability, and modern, inclusive governance in a small town that packs a major punch.
Remy Wines stands as proof that innovation and integrity can thrive side by side. From carbon-negative concrete to community-driven leadership, Remy Drabkin has built a model for what the next generation of wineries can look like; equitable, sustainable, and unapologetically authentic. Her work challenges the industry to think beyond the bottle, showing that great wine can be both a craft and a catalyst for change.
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