Celebrated Oregon winemaker dies in Roseburg

PORTLAND – A celebrated Oregon winemaker who helped found several well-known wineries died in her isolated cabin in southern Oregon, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Patricia Green, 62, may have fallen while alone at the cabin in Roseburg, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported. She died on Monday.

Green co-owned the Willamette Valley winery Patricia Green Cellars in Newberg.

Green’s winery co-owner and fellow winemaker Jim Anderson described Green as a “universally lovable” and extremely private person, who had a bountiful personality.

“You talk about somebody with no enemies, it’s quite literally her,” Anderson said. “I think people gravitated towards her because they felt like they had somebody who was honest, emotional and forthright. Somebody they could talk to.”

Accolades and awards never interested Green, Anderson said, who eschewed fame for simple action.

“She just wanted to work with pristine fruit from grape vineyards and turn them into wines that really spoke to where they came from,” Anderson said.

Green started as a grape picker in 1986 at Roseburg’s Hillcrest Winery and rose to the role of winemaker.

She was then hired as a winemaker at Adelsheim Vineyard in Newberg in 1990 before being lured away in 1993 to help found Torii Mor Wineries.

She stayed there until 2000 and then left to start her own business with Anderson, whom she had known for more than two decades.

“We had ups and downs like anybody does in any sort of relationship but we used to joke that other than the weird people whose marriages somehow survived owning a winery together that we were the longest standing winemaking duo in Oregon,” he joked in a bittersweet remembrance on the winery’s website.

Anderson said a memorial service is being planned.