About Avalon Wine & Northwest-Wine.com
The Company and the Crew
Avalon was founded 20 years ago as a bed and breakfast in the Oregon wine country by Jean Yates. It quickly evolved into a retail store in Corvallis, Oregon, where it continues to sell Oregon and Pacific Northwest wine and gourmet foods today. Avalon started selling wine and gourmet products on the web in 1997, and continually updates the Avalon wine site with articles, interviews, columns, wine reviews, and more. There's a lot of information we've accumulated over ten years online, check us out!
Housed in a hundred year old historical building, the Corvallis Arms Hotel, Avalon focuses on Oregon and Washington wines and gourmet foods. We also feature our favorite wines from Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and elsewhere. It's worth a special trip to the store, as there are often highly-rated, rare Northwest wines on the shelves that aren't available on the web site.
Avalon also has a web site office in rural Alpine, in a 105 year old farmhouse in the middle of the foothills of the coastal range, just south of Green Peak Mountain, in the South Willamette Valley wine growing region.
Avalon Wine, the store, has hosted Oregon and Washington winemakers for tastings on Saturday at the store since 1991. Avalon staff enjoys visiting with customers who stop off I-5 on their way up or down the state to check out our selection of top rated, hard-to-get Northwest wines. Our shelves represent upcoming "Indie" producers and great values as well as highly-rated, collectible wines from established producers. Whether you live in the Corvallis area or visiting from far away, we'll help you find the perfect wine for your cellar or for dinner tonight!
Personnel
Jean Yates
Founder and President, Web Guru
Jean first worked with the Oregon wine industry in 1989, when she helped develop marketing brochures for wineries in the South Willamette. She then started Avalon, and has supported the industry through her wine shop and web site ever since. Jean enjoys promoting Oregon and Washington wines and bringing Northwest wines to the notice of the wine-loving public across the country. She previously worked in high tech marketing and research in Silicon Valley.
Jean built and continually updates the Avalon web site, writes our Wine Club Newsletter, numerous e-mail articles on NW wine, and articles for the web site. Her twenty years of experience working with NW wineries and winemakers gives Avalon a deep knowledge of the industry. She's judged NW wine at various competitions since 1997. Jean's favorite activity is photography, and many of the images on the Avalon web site are hers. She's from NC via Palo Alto, and lives in the South Willamette wine country.
Marcus Looze
Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Marcus is responsible for selecting and ordering the wines Avalon sells, and he manages our Wine Clubs. He's often the guy on the phone who answers the tough questions and writes tasting notes and e-mail articles for the web site. He knows about many of the "Insider" and "Indie" wines that don't make the national press.
Marcus is a relative newcomer to Oregon and loves it. He moved from Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked on clean air and energy policy for a non-profit environmental organization. An avid wine enthusiast and cook, Marcus also likes to mountain bike, cross-country ski, and play drums.
Amy Paul
Customer Service Specialist
If you call Avalon, chances are you'll speak with Amy. She manages Avalon's customer orders on the web, telephone and in the store. The best part of Amy's day at Avalon is helping customers pair their up-coming meals and events with an amazing Oregon or Washington wine.
After spending many years at Boeing Aircraft Co. in Seattle, a year of culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu and most recently a year in Dublin, Ireland at a bakery she is happy to return home to Oregon. Now back in the Northwest she enjoys camping, gardening, and creating dinner parties featuring farm grown produce and, of course, Oregon Pinot.
Kevin Hanscom
Shipping Manager
Kevin is the man - he pulls, packs, tracks and generally keeps the shipping systems flowing. There's a lot of precision and paper work to make sure everyone gets what they ordered, quickly and in good shape. All this, and he and his wife have a strapping young boy, Noah, who looks just like Kevin (except for the beard).
Kevin is a professional bass player. He is classically trained and performs with the OSU Symphony and other ensembles in the area.
Wendy Brown
Business Manager
She manages Avalon's books. She keeps track of shipments and orders, and manages the gourmet food section of the Avalon site. She pays the bills and keeps us on the financial straight and narrow. Her son Asher is just about the best kid in Oregon.
She formerly owned and managed a brew pub in Oregon -- ask her anything about beer! She also enjoys gardening and spending time on the Alsea River.
Christina Kelly
Contributor & Columnist
For more than 20 years, Christina Kelly worked as a newspaper reporter on the West Coast, covering education, public safety, government, business, environmental issues, entertainment and minority affairs. She now lives and works in Spokane, where she is the wine writer for the Spokane paper. Her entertaining articles enrich the pages of Avalon's website and she posts an occasional column "Wine Tales" on the site.
