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WINEMAKER INTERVIEW 50 WINES&VINES May 2016 W hen Ryan Harms started classes at Binghamton University in upstate New York, he planned to become a doctor. But during his sophomore year, "Organic chemistry kind of did its damage." With no strong plan, he thought back to his interest in wine. The family of his high school sweetheart, Tori (now his wife), always had wine on the table, and he would hear the stories behind particular bottles and sometimes get a taste. Harms was looking at the website for Rex Hill Winery in Oregon and saw the email address for then-winemaker Lynn Penner-Ash. He started picking her brain about the wine industry, and she finally told him that the best way to learn was to work a harvest, which he did at Rex Hill in 1997. Harms went on to earn his degree in environmen- tal science in 1999, and he worked for a time for a health insurer. When a re- organization eliminated his job, he reconnected with some of the people he'd met in Oregon and found a job at Bergstrom Wines. He worked for several win- eries before starting Union Wine Co. in 2005. The goal of the Union team, located in Tuala- t i n , O r e . , i s t o m a k e wine affordable and less f u s s y. To t h a t e n d , Harms started packag- ing some wines in cans under the Underwood l a b e l , w h i c h h e h a d s t a r t e d i n 2 0 0 6 . T h e canned wines were launched in 2014 and now account for about 25% of Union's sales. Harms also makes wine for the Alchemist and Kings Ridge brands, and he bought Amity Vineyards with his brother, Eric Harms, in 2014. Q Why package wine, especially high-quality wine, in cans? RYAN HARMS: For a number of years we have been talk- ing about the idea of having better packaging options to bring our wines on the adventures we have around Ore- gon. Wine was missing from many of the activities that we enjoyed because glass was less than ideal to bring along. As we watched craft breweries locally start to can more beer, the idea was discussed about canning wine and what a great package that would be. So in spring 2013, we were talking about some ideas for an event we were going to do in the fall called FEAST Port- land. We thought this would be a great opportu- nity to introduce the idea of canned still wine, but also the can would do a great job of communicat- ing some of the values we have as an organization. At Union we talk about t h i s i d e a o f " p i n k i e s down," not taking our- selves too seriously, mak- ing our wines accessible, doing away with what we perceive to be the barriers wine can create for con- sumers. The can embodies all this in a simple pack- age. FEAST Portland was a huge success, and in the spring of 2014 we started selling our cans. Union Wine Co. just celebrated its 10-year anniversary in 2015, and our bottle busi- ness has been growing (in the) double-digits for years. We wanted the cans to be simply a packaging alternative to our bottled wines, which many consumers were already familiar with. To that end, it was important that the wines we put in bottle and in cans were the same blends. A CONVERSATION WITH Ryan Harms Founder of Oregon's Union Wine Co. discusses cans and screwcaps By Laurie Daniel