Oregon winemaker Patricia Green dies

The former winemaker at Oregon’s Torii Mor, Patricia Green, has been found dead in an apparent accident at her holiday home in the countryside.

A talented winemaker who also co-founded Patricia Green Cellars in 2000 after seven years as head winemaker at Torii Mor, Green was found dead at her cabin retreat near Roseburg, Oregon on Monday this week (6 November). She was 62.

Her business and winemaking partner, Jim Anderson, told Wine Spectator that the “apparent cause” of her death was a fall but he knew nothing more at that moment.

In a statement on the winery’s website, Anderson praised Green saying she was, “a mighty force” with a “pure” approach to winemaking.

He said: “I had the special privilege of having known, worked and partnered with Patty for over 20 years. I met Patty in 1995 and over the course of the preceding 22+ years we went from strangers working together to co-conspirators in making something out of a new Oregon winery to partners in a vineyard and winery venture that surpasses anything we ever expected to do.

“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.

“Her approach to winemaking was pure. She had no motivations to be famous or acknowledged or even particularly that well paid. She had a belief in what parts of the earth could bear and what she could do to guide that fruit along a path of turning from one pristine to state to another.

“Because of her desire to be extremely low-profile and the nature of the winery itself she likely did not get the accolades for her work in the Oregon wine business. Nonetheless I know that the loss I feel will also be a loss to the more delicate soul of all the things that make winemaking and vineyard tending special in Oregon.”