las corridas

We tend to romanticize getting our hands dirty and working the land. But when it’s time to get down to business it is migrants who do the backbreaking work in orchards and vineyards all over the world. Executing the care and patience it takes for regenerative farming doubles that work. In the United States, las corridas (the terrain runs) have been a decades long tradition for migrant workers from Mexico and Central America. The trail starts during the Fall in California, moving north to Oregon and then Washington. The voyage repeats during the winter pruning season earning wages by the commission. Healthcare also becomes a tough issue when people are moving from place to place in such a short period of time. Nevermind the low wages and fire seasons to brave. To this day, whole families with children count on the terrain runs for survival, only returning to their respective countries to rest a few months out of the year. According to the Oregon Health Authority, over 174,000 migrant and seasonal laborers find their way to Oregon to work its multibillion-dollar agricultural industry every year.

It was the late seventies when Manuel Cornejo left his small town of San Juan de Los Lagos in Jalisco, Mexico. Selling souvenirs was most of the work he could find in his hometown which was known for its huge churches and religious tourism. At 18, he joined the terrain runs, living in labor housing and working from dusk until dawn. By 1980, he had a few runs under his belt and decided to make Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge home. Manuel settled down and started a family in Hood River at an organic orchard called Pheasant Valley - known today as Hiyu Wine Farm. He has worked on this land for decades, building a tight-knit community of migrant families joining him each and every harvest and pruning season. The wear and tear of forty years in the vines & trees sing a tale of sacrifice and survival that most do not think about as they uncork and pour their latest treasured libation.

The next generation

Manuel’s sons, Adrian and Hernan Cornejo, were born and raised on the orchard. Family and hard work were instilled in the brothers at a young age. Adrian, the eldest, remembers jumping into the fields at twelve years old; moving irrigation lines, and manicuring the lawns for $5 an hour.  At fifteen, he and his mother would fill a cooler with hot flour tortillas filled with egg and hot dog and another filled with soda pops. A nine dollar commission to fill a bin meant workers would not stop to take breaks or even a lunch. Adrian would schlepp both his coolers up the slope, picker by picker, to sell $1 burritos and refreshments to a labor force of mostly men. Many of these men were his relatives staying in labor housing on the property. Each Sunday would turn into a BBQ and celebration as a means to reset for the upcoming week.  In summer, the whole family would return to Mexico. Abuela would pick a chicken or pig to slaughter for dinner and cook over the outdoor fire, her only means of preparing a meal. 

The Cornejo brothers would learn the lay of the land and give to it just as their Father did. The early mornings of setting up a pick at 4 am and managing a team would flow naturally from their humble upbringing. Adrian wanted to learn as much as he could about the business transitioning himself from the fields to the tasting room at Pheasant Valley. This curiosity and drive is born out of survival. He didn’t realize that he had started to build a framework for what he hoped to build in the future for his own legacy: a wine label of his own.

nueva aventura

In 2012, Nate Ready & China Tresemer took over the orchard, and a three-year transition began to shift the organic practices to another level. From manicured orchards to the forest-like regenerative agriculture opus we see today. Rows of field blends, magical healing herbs, and animal rotations to feed the soils are built into its infrastructure. The brothers hone in on new ways to care for the vines and trees. They begin to understand fermentation and aging by just letting things occur naturally at their own pace without manipulations. Flora and fauna are encouraged to run wild throughout the site. The idea of diversifying the land begins to trickle out into the hands that guide the fruit through its evolution to wine & cider. Did these brothers know the sweat off their brow was going into the creation of some of the most celebrated natural wines in the country? Probably not, but the influence is quite clear.

With over fifteen harvests and pruning seasons under their belts, Adrian and Hernan jump into creating “Nueva Aventura'' while still focusing the majority of their time on carrying out the vision and dream of Hiyu. Now three vintages in, the Cornejo brothers have shifted from the ideology of “pure” single grape expressions to a willingness to explore coferments & multi-fruit blends. 

This story becomes more common as we travel through Oregon. First-generation children of migrants setting out on their own version of the “American Dream” through the language of orchard and vine. Sacrificing their bodies and time to work the land to in turn be able to offer new adventures to the next generations of their lineage. The Cornejo brothers hope to have their own land one day with their very own tasting room...perhaps carnitas tacos would be on the menu to pair with a glass. At this point, the dream seems more attainable than ever.

–Jirka Jireh

**special thanks to Nate Ready & Hiyu Wine Farm & Adrian Cornejo for the spectacular photos!**