Stepping back in time for a glass of wine
Gloria and Stephen Reustle are pleased with the cave cellar that has been built into a hillside at their Prayer Rock Vineyard in the Umpqua area. The cellar features a walkway etched with Roman scriptures from the Bible and three catacomb rooms for wine tasting and education.
The Reustles drink a toast to the cave cellar they’ve had built into a hillside at their Prayer Rock Vineyard in the Umpqua area. The cave will also be used for wine tasting and is available for catered dinners.
CRAIG REED/The News-Review
UMPQUA — Walking through the thick, curved wooden doors with heavy, black iron hinges almost takes one back in time.
The dimly lit tunnel ahead is lined with oak wine barrels on both sides. Beautifully etched in the stone walkway are several scriptures from the book of Romans in the Bible.
With any kind of imagination, it’s easy to picture those days and scenes of 2,000 years ago while walking through the wine cellar cave at Reustle Prayer Rock Vineyard.
The stone-looking walls and ceiling are etched and have a rough cave look. There are four angels carved at different places in the walls, candle holders at the turns in the walkway, electric crystal chandeliers overhead that give a candlelight effect and three small catacomb rooms. On the ceiling in the back of the cave there’s a replica of the painting Michelangelo did on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome — the iconic image of God creating man.
“I’ve never been so happy with any big project I’ve been involved with as I am with this cave,” said Stephen Reustle, who with his wife, Gloria, owns Prayer Rock Vineyard. “There were times when everything seemed to be caving in on me … this has truly been the most stressful time of my life, but we’re so pleased with what is there. We give the glory to God for making it all happen.”
The cave cellar is the first in Southern Oregon, although there are a couple at wineries in the upper end of the state’s Willamette Valley.
After a career in big-city marketing on the East Coast, the Reustles moved to an entirely different lifestyle seven years ago, settling in a valley in the unincorporated area of Umpqua. They cleared the hillsides and planted 35 acres of wine grapes on south facing slopes.
They began the cave project earlier this year.
“I saw the use of caves in Europe, and whenever I was in California and visited a (wine cellar) cave, I always felt it was a quality operation,” Stephen Reustle said. “I just felt there was a synergy between wine and a cave.”
A recommendation led the Reustles to contact Victory Builders, a Roseburg company owned by Tom Pappas, about doing the cave work.
“Tom is so invested in this project,” Stephen Reustle said. “I think he just wanted to show everybody what his company and crew can do.
“Ninety-nine percent of everything done on this project is from Douglas County builders,” Reustle added of about 12 subcontractors that were involved. “It just shows the talents people here have.”
The cave can hold 200 wine barrels in storage. In addition, tables can be set up along the back hallway for winemaker dinners; the three catacomb rooms, each 12 feet square, will be used for wine tasting and education. Each of those rooms — the WAR Room in honor of Stephen Reustle’s father who had those initials, the Victory Room in honor of Tom Pappas’ company, and the Celebration Room in honor of the Bible — will have a table and chairs as well as a TV screen so DVDs made in the vineyards’ fields and winery can be shown to educate visitors on the winemaking process.
“Rather than standing at a bar and serving samples, we decided to put these components of tasting and appetizers and education together in a cave,” Stephen Reustle said. “I always found wine tasted better when drinking it in a cave.”
Just outside the cave is the crush pad and an adjoining building where the fermenting, blending and the filling of barrels and bottles take place.
Up a couple of flights of stairs, an area over the cave has been leveled and is an observation area that looks out over the vineyard.
“I’m very excited, for us as well as Douglas County, about what the cave can do for all of the wineries here, not just ours,” said Gloria Reustle.
“I definitely think that anything that is a little bit unique is good for the local industry,” said Scott Henry, owner of the Henry Estate Winery, another Umpqua area business.
Wine enthusiasts traditionally visit several wineries when they’re out sampling and shopping for wines.