Tyson Hood holds the unusual title of “wine librarian” at Left Coast Estate, near Rickreall.
While many wineries have “library wines” that they deliberately put aside to sell later, that wasn’t the case at Left Coast, he said.
“Left Coast wasn’t meant to be a winery,” Hood said. “In the original days, they wanted to grow and sell grapes.”
So, in addition to other duties at the winery, Hood’s job for the past year has been to sort and catalogue nearly two decades worth of boxes and bottles that have been gathering dust in storage.
The building where all those wines were stored has been turned into a new space, with a library feel, where Hood will lead tastings of the library wines.
That could mean, for example, comparing the same wines from a very hot year, like 2015, and a cooler year.
Because the winery grew slowly, and involved a lot of experimentation, there’s a wide and interesting diversity of bottles, Hood said.
“It was kind of a surprise,” he said. “I actually have a case of 2004 blackberry wine we found.”
Hood, who is nearing 40, found his way to the wine industry relatively late in life.
“Twenty years ago, I was sitting in a counselor’s office at Chemeketa Community College trying to pick what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he said. “And I very vividly remember getting to the end of the book and going, ‘Wine studies, that’s so stupid. Why would anybody do wine studies.’”
Instead, he went into engineering but was laid off from the tech industry during the pandemic.
In need of work, Hood headed to a relative’s 5-acre vineyard in the Chehalem Mountains, just south of Portland, to help out.
“Going from 14 hours behind a computer to working in a vineyard was incredible,” he said. “I honestly knew right then I was destined to do this.”
Hood went to work at Brooks Wine, in Amity, then at Andante Vineyard, in Dallas.
He’s been at Left Coast for a year, doing everything from cooking pizza to lining up musical acts to choosing the tasting menu while working on the wine library project.
“The whole industry is so interesting to me,” he said. “It’s been good and life changing.”
When he’s not learning or teaching about wine, Hood is an international swing dance competitor, attending as many as 37 dance events in a year. He said he hopes to bring dance classes to the winery, as well.
Although he’s referred to as “wine librarian” on Left Coast’s website, Hood said his title actually is educational tasting lead.
“It’s an interesting thing,” he said. “Old wines are finite. … I’m more or less putting myself out of a job as I explore these things.”
Left Coast’s new tasting library opens Memorial Day weekend and will be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Labor Day.
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Tracy Loew covers the environment at the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips: tloew@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399-6779. Follow her on Twitter at @Tracy_Loew
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Left Coast Estate to open wine-tasting library in Oregon