Queer Wine Fest Celebrates LGBTQ+ Community in the Wine Industry

Remy Drabkin remembers a time when the wine industry was far less accepting of LGBTQ+ people than it is today.

Early in her career as the founder of Remy Wines, the winery she started in 2006, the former mayor of McMinnville recalls a moment when a conservative winebuyer asked Drabkin an innocent enough question. But if Drabkin revealed that her partner was watching her dog while traveling on business, she would out herself and, she felt, risk sales or her safety. So Drabkin fibbed, a white lie that deeply upset her to tell.

“I was scared to be out when I started Remy Wines,” Drabkin says. “I hadn’t closeted myself for so long. Now I fly Progress Pride and Black Lives Matter flags around the property seven days a week.”

Drabkin helped start the Wine Country LGBTQ+ Pride Festival in 2020 by hosting it at Remy Wines. It now takes place in downtown McMinnville in August, with other related activations in Newberg and surrounding towns, to help celebrate the queer population of the Willamette Valley’s winemaking region, but Drabkin still wanted to use the winery’s grounds to support its cause. She started Queer Wine Fest in 2022, and believes it to be the first wine festival comprising wineries owned or operated by an LGBTQ+ person in charge.

“Wine Country Pride’s mission is to create visible celebrations of the queer community while connecting all people through education and economic activity,” Drabkin says. “It’s had a broad impact on the region beyond just making queer spaces. I started Queer Wine Fest to really bring focus back to the wine industry and queer people within the wine industry instead of just this region.”

Queer Wine Fest doesn’t just connect and uplift Oregon wineries; it brings in winemakers from all across the country. This year’s festival, running June 29, will welcome the largest number of out-of-state wineries thus far. The day before the festival is for winemakers to network and meet one another before the public joins in on the fun the next day. Drabkin also cooks for her peers, another festival first. (She’s thinking of barbecuing Italian sausage this year.) After that, Drabkin anticipates more than 200 guests will come in from nearby hotels, but she says this year is the first time she’s been able to get a shuttle directly from Portland for guests.

“The demand for this to be a bigger event is there, but this is just a rural winery and I only have so many places for people to park,” Drabkin says. “If everyone carpooled, this could easily be a 300–to–400–person event.”

Portland synth pop duo Camp Crush will provide headlining entertainment, along with aerial dance performances by acrobat Torra Holmes. Vendors whom guests might find themselves emboldened to try include purveyors of haircuts and flash tattoos, which are not covered by the base cost of the tickets that go on sale June 1. They, along with caterers and other related vendors, are also queer. The atmosphere works to dispel the broader wine industry’s snooty, elitist reputation, making guests feel more comfortable with wine even if they don’t know much about it.

“I think we’ve uncloseted the wine industry,” Drabkin says. “We were always working in it and being a part of it and making it great and historically important for this region and the U.S. with the diverse growing regions, and now we’re following every industry uncloseting itself. When you do that, you find your people.”

GO: Queer Wine Fest at Remy Wines, 17495 NE McDougall Road, Dayton, 503-864-8777, queerwinefest.com. 4–7 pm Sunday, June 29. $128.