Wine Crush Episode 3

Guest Biographies

Rebecca Moore

After an 11 year stint as a litigator in the Bay Area, Rebecca decided to clear my head in Oregon and babysit the family farm which is comprised of 20+ acres of prime vineyard in the much acclaimed Northern Willamette Valley. What actually occurred was that she worked her tail off during her very first harvest, learned to deal with real winter again, became one with the barn cats and the barn owl, and decided she could never go back to life as it had been.

Now, her days are spent learning as much as she can about this amazing vineyard she is so blessed to live with; and she is immersed in studying all aspects of the wine business. Her parents are resigned to her having ruined their plans to sell up and retire, but couldn’t be more excited that she has joined the small but growing ranks of women poised to succeed to their families’ vineyard businesses.

Christine Andrus

Christine Andrus grew up just outside of Chicago in northwest Indiana where the steel industry was the major source of jobs for several generations. After graduating early from high school and leaving home at 17 to attend university, she never turned back. After graduation, she felt an overwhelming desire to travel and set out on a meandering path that took her all over the U.S., Hawaii, and ultimately Europe. There she spent 3 years living in Vienna, Austria- basically putting the gypsy in Gypsy Dancer.

Back in the U.S., in order to fund her escapades in the Food and Beverage Industry, she gravitated toward wine and sought out opportunities to learn more and work more closely with it, while living her snowboarder’s lifestyle in southwest Colorado. It was a chance meeting in Vail, Colorado at a wine industry tasting while she worked for a wine distributor, that she met her husband, R. Gary Andrus, who owned the renowned wineries- Pine Ridge in Napa, CA and Archery Summit in Dayton, OR. They got married and simultaneously started two small production operations in Cornelius, OR and Central Otago, New Zealand where just the two of them and two others handcrafted the wines. They had two daughters, Gypsy and Romanée and happily spent 6 months each year in both hemispheres making Gypsy Dancer Wines.

Sadly, Gary passed away in 2009 and she sold all of their wineries and vineyards. She left the industry and Oregon to focus on her young girls who were 4 and 6 years old- moving to the edge of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. She acquired a herd of 46 head of bison and started a small yoga studio in their little town- population, 880. In 2012, she decided to try making a little wine again. Enlisting the help of some friends in the industry, she flew to Oregon, procured grapes from some former custom crush clients, who now had a beautiful vineyard in Amity, and made 150 cases at Scott Paul Winery in Carlton under the Gypsy Dancer label.