A New Adventure

Nueva Aventura is rooted in Hood River’s farming traditions

By Ben Coleman

When Adrian Cornejo’s father moved from Mexico to Hood River in the 1970s, he only planned to be here for one year. “He wanted to get married, so he’s like, ‘I need to get some money,’” Cornejo shares. His father soon found a job at Pheasant Valley, one of the first certified organic orchards in the region. He never returned home. Cornejo grew up working there alongside his father and brother Hernan. When Pheasant Valley transitioned from fruit to wine in 2004, so did the Cornejo clan. In 2015, the brothers started Nueva Aventura Wines, a boutique wine label inspired by their experiences.

“I was born and raised with pears and apples,” Cornejo recalls, “That’s how it started.” Before he could work in the fields, Cornejo toted around a couple coolers, selling sodas and burritos to the orchard workers. “Once I got a little older, I helped with harvest and pruning. My summertime gig was working in the farm,” he recounts.

Cornejo wasn’t particularly upset when Pheasant Valley turned its focus to grapes, though. “It’s definitely harder to pick pears and apples,” he states with confidence, “You’ve got this 60-to 70-pound bag you’re filling up, while going up and down a ladder.”  However, working the various aspects of an orchard, from harvest to packaging, instilled an appreciation for the challenges and rewards of agricultural life. Cornejo reports some side benefits: “You want to work out your arms? You want to have those guns for the girls? Prune some trees.”

Harvesting grapes, by comparison, can be more zen: “I listen to a podcast or some music. It’s a good way to just do the work and not have to think of anything,” Cornejo explains. Growing up in the Latino farmworker community meant finding ways to make even the most repetitive and difficult tasks feel less like work. “People love listening to music out there and having a good time,” he adds, “I mean, you might as well make the best of eight hours.”

At the end of the day, Cornejo believes farm work is as much of a calling as anything else. “The people that have been there long enough, they do it because they enjoy it,” he observes. Some jobs don’t always produce a visible result. But when harvest arrives, empty baskets become heavy and empty bottles are filled. “I’m a farm boy through and through,” Cornejo boasts, “I enjoy farming.”

Wine production also has its appeals. For over a decade, Adrian and Hernan have crafted small batches of Nueva Aventura wines in Hood River, often distributing them by hand to bottle shops in Portland and along the Columbia River. The name reflects Cornejo’s desire to try something new. Nueva Aventura has produced a couple of cases of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay over the years, but Cornejo finds the more interesting projects involve grapes like Tempranillo and Malbec, as well as a unique approach to co-fermenting with fruit.

The 2021 Mezcolanza Rojo is a blend of Malbec and Pinot Gris, with red and black currants plus rosehips added during fermentation. The name mezcolanza, or “mish mash” in Spanish, reflects a spirit of improvisation. It’s been a hit with novelty-seeking bottle shops, but getting the wine into restaurants can be a challenge, especially when buyers aren’t quite sure how to pair it.

Cornejo is quick to point out he doesn’t create the kind of candy-sweet fruit wine hybrids consumers may encounter on the bottom of convenience store coolers. Because he employs natural winemaking techniques and adds the fruit early in the process, the natural sugars are consumed during fermentation. “I don’t make anything sweet,” he notes, “everything’s on the dry side,” which balances flavors, enhances complexity and improves ageability. Every beginning winemaker, he declares, has experienced an exploded bottle or two thanks to some residual sugar.

Cornejo, inspired by the free-ranging philosophy of Hiyu Wines, which purchased Pheasant Valley in 2014, encouraged him to work on the production side. “That Old World style of natural winemaking really opened my eyes,” he admits. Cornejo is having fun mixing things up. “It’s not so much by the book,” he acknowledges, “but trying new things. Throw some fruit in there. Mix some things.” For Cornejo, experimentation represents the “new adventure” in Nueva Aventura: “Let’s make something different, you know?”

He still farms a couple of acres of vines in the Hood River area as well as managing Nueva Aventura. Cornejo says working the soil, knowing the vines and picking the grapes is essential to the handcrafted feel of his wines. “I say that now because I’m strong,” he quips with a chuckle, “20 years from now? I might not feel the same way.”  For now, he’s anticipating harvest. “It’s joyful. It has strategy and technique behind it.”

Nueva Aventura Wines
nuevaaventurawine.com
(541) 490-4758
vinonueva@gmail.com

Ben Coleman is an award-winning freelance writer based in Portland, and a regular contributor to EaterPDX, covering food and drink in one of the West Coast's best eating and drinking cities. For more than a decade he's written for Northwest alt weeklies including the Portland Mercury and Seattle Stranger, where he's reviewed everything from Tokyo-style listening bars to Shrek-themed raves. His work has also appeared in lifestyle magazines like Portland Monthly and pop culture websites including Reactor, Comics Beat, and Star-Trek.com