Autumn Wind Vineyards was established in the late 1980's by Tom and Wendy Kreutner.
The couple moved to Oregon from California and had careers in the financial industry.
They grew to love the wine country and sought out property to establish their own vineyard and winery.
The two discovered the Ribbon Ridge area before it became "the area".
After a few years, they had a following and on holiday weekends (Memorial Day Weekend, pre-Thanksgiving weekend and Thanksgiving Weekend) it was common to see over 500 people a day coming through the winery. I am sure that I spoke to most of those visitors while I was at the sales desk.
The winery was known, by regulars, to have great food on these weekends. In the begining, Wendy made most of the food herself. As the number of visitors grew, she gave up on making everything. She did make the
But she stopped making the bread and meatballs. Oh Lordy, the meatballs!
Those damned meatballs took on a life of their own! We literally had one
person doing nothing but refresh the food. Those meatballs kept that person
scrambling all day! Guests were like yellowjackets at a picnic. The food
person would be trying to make it to the chaffing dish and before they got there,
most of the meatballs had be snarfed by people with toothpicks!
Now, after the winery was sold, in 2000, we were able to tell the true story of the last several years of the meatballs. In the begining, Wendy made them. It was fairly easy, but once you have 500+ hungry tasters come in on one day, you just throw in the towel and quit making the damned meatballs.
Now mind you, there was always a recipe card next to the foods, the meatballs were no exception. Tasters would come back and say, "I tried to make those meatballs..they just didn't taste the same." Tom would respond, "Did you remember to add the sour cream?" The answer was always, "No, I didn't see that on the card."
Truth be told, the meatballs came from Costco and the gravy was chicken gravy. Yep, it's true. When Tom would go to buy the meatballs, he would have soooo many bags that all Costco employees would ask "Are you having a large party?" He would respond, "No, large family." Too funny!
