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 You could call Aleph Springs the “spiritual capital” of the burgeoning Southern Oregon wine country.
One of the project’s partners, Al Silbowitz, is a vintner who owns Grizzly Peak Winery. Another, Stan Shulster, is an award-winning wine grape grower.
Attend an event at Aleph Springs, and there’s a chance you’ll be saying kiddush over Silbowitz’ cabernet, or a merlot produced by Eola Hills Winery with grapes grown at Shulster’s Bella Vista Vineyard. (At a World of Wine competition in 2005, Shulster won a gold medal for the best claret produced in the region.)
For good reason, says Silbowitz, who began planting 10 years ago, the Rogue Valley has become increasingly well known for its fine wine.
“We have the right climate for it,” says Silbowitz, “The grapes love the nice hot summers and sunny days for ripen ing.”
With three wineries in Ashland and about a couple of dozen throughout the Rogue Valley, the industry, locally, is “just starting to flower,” says Silbowitz.
Grapes were grown and wine was bottled here as far back as the mid- 1800s, but the valley wasn’t “discovered” until the late ‘60s when a university professor planted an experimental vineyard. In 2001 the Rogue Valley became an official appellation.
To celebrate the success of the new Ashland neighborhood, Silbowitz is considering bottling wines with a new and special label: “Aleph Springs.”
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