¡Viva Convivio!
Latino Makers Food & Wine Convivio unites community, food and wine
By Ben Coleman
The Latino community works in every facet of wine, from planting vineyards to pouring a glass of Pinot Noir alongside a plate of fresh grilled salmon. Often, an overlooked demographic of Latino entrepreneurs is hard at work behind the scenes, actively blending its unique cultural heritage with Oregon’s iconoclastic streak. The Latino Makers Food & Wine Convivio unites some of those voices. On Sept. 25 and 26, the McMinnville festival celebrates the innovations and evolving traditions this community brings to one of the state’s defining industries.
“Convivio” doesn’t have an exact English equivalent, but it describes sharing both space and experiences– a gathering– ideally with plenty of food and a bottle or two of something fun.
This Convivio spotlights several prominent Latino winemakers and vineyard owners, along with a number of chefs and food producers from the region. The winemakers range from established producers like Cória Estates, a 27-year-old family-owned vineyard with a tasting room in Salem, to newer indie labels like Hood River’s Nueva Aventura, two brothers making small-batch fruit and wine blends.
Featured food producers include Salem’s Don Froylan Creamery, McMinnville’s Pura Vida Cocina and Gary Marmanillo of Portland’s Casa Zoraya, a critically beloved Peruvian restaurant that frequently appears on Eater’s “best of” lists.
Most featured makers carry multigenerational stories– some preserving family traditions across decades, others moving between industries in search of new opportunities. For example, Maylin Chávez, founder of Nácar Oysters, recalls exploring the Baja Coast with her grandfather. “[He’d] strap on a belt, an oyster knife and pocket a small bottle of hot sauce,” she recalls, “and we’d eat our way through the walk.”
Valcan Cellars’ founder Juan Pablo Valot is a fifth-generation Argentine winemaker and the first in his family to formally study winemaking. Since Argentine wines developed in tandem with the country’s robust beef industry, Valot’s family focuses on big fruity Malbecs that stand up to asado flank steak. Here in Oregon, Valcan crafts Malbec in every color, including white and sparkling. The most common question Valot gets is how to pair these unusual Malbecs with food. He offers this advice: “It’s brand new. There’s no menu so you can do whatever you want!”
Adrian Cornejo of Nueva Aventura draws on the inventive problem-solving he witnessed in the Mexican wine scene. “I’m from Jalisco, Mexico, and that’s tequila country,” he says, explaining how the local wine producers utilized unusual vessels with the limited infrastructure available outside the tequila industry. “They’re super creative, using all their resources. Clay pots, concrete eggs… which are common here now, but this was 10 to 15 years ago.” Cornejo is looking to tap into that ingenuity with his own wines by blending unique fruit combinations and relying on spontaneous fermentation.
While Oregon’s wine industry isn’t all that old, there’s a wealth of agricultural tradition in the Latino population of the West, a story this Convivio is hoping to bring into the broader conversation.
Latino Makers Food & Wine Convivio
Friday, Sept. 25: Five-course vineyard dinner, 6:30 p.m.
Alumbra Estates, 12655 SE Stringtown Road, Dayton
Saturday, Sept. 26: Makers tasting, noon to 5 p.m.
The Ground at Stillwater, 455 N.E. Irvine St., McMinnville
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.
