{"id":481,"date":"2013-05-13T15:32:06","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T15:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/?p=481"},"modified":"2017-05-22T20:39:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-22T20:39:14","slug":"mary-e-olson-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/2013\/05\/13\/mary-e-olson-74\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary E. Olson ’74, Owner of Airlie Winery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MaryWhen an Auggie recently visited the Airlie Winery in Airlie, Oregon, he asked fellow-Auggie and winery owner Mary E. Olson \u201974<\/strong> if the large \u201cA\u201d in the landscaping (carved out of boxwood) stood for \u201cAugsburg.\u201d She just smiled and said, \u201cSure!\u201d Even though very few of the Auggies she encounters at the winery\u2014or at other wine-tasting events around the country\u2014are acquaintances from her student days, Olson still feels the connection.<\/p>\n

Years after the Osceola (WI) native had graduated with a political science\/English double major, she found her liberal arts education particularly useful as she left her work with US West after 22 years, and switched gears by following her dream of moving back to Oregon and owning a winery. In 1997, she purchased Airlie Winery, situated on the coastal edge of the lush hills of Oregon\u2019s Willamette Valley\u2014an area that has captured her heart. She says it\u2019s Minnesota-friendly with better weather, and she fully intends to retire there. \u201cMy winery is not a stop along the way,\u201d says Olson, \u201cit is a place to sit and stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

When her friend and Airlie\u2019s winemaker, Suzy, died suddenly in 2005 from a brain aneurism, friends and volunteers from other Oregon wineries came to the rescue and helped Olson until she could find a replacement\u2014Team Oregon, she likes to call it. She views sustainability of the winery as a three-legged stool\u2014\u201cthe earth, employees, and your customers\u201d\u2014and she purchases grapes from a nearby vineyard that, like Airlie, is Certified Sustainable and Salmon Safe. Being part of the Oregon Pinot Noir continues to be her dream-come-true.<\/p>\n

Airlie\u2019s website (www.airliewinery.com<\/a>) provides an opportunity for Auggies to sign up to receive emails, as well as info on where you can find Airlie wines in your area. Airlie\u2019s distributor (amy@oenodist.com<\/a>) stands ready to add another shop to the list, and responds well to such customer requests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When an Auggie recently visited the Airlie Winery in Airlie, Oregon, he asked fellow-Auggie and winery owner Mary E. Olson …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48076,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/48076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}