By Kirby Neumann-Rea • Of the News-Register • December 15, 2023 TweetBack, and Forth: Author reflects on four decades in the vineyard“I’m optimistic about Brand Oregon,” said Allen Holstein, 43-year veteran of vineyard management and winemaking in Dundee. He spoke recently at Linfield University’s Nicholson Library, drawing extensively on his 116-page memoir about the Yamhill County wine industry, “Grape Whisperers,” which was published in 2022. That resulted in the first library fine since I was a student at Linfield in 1980 — about the time Holstein came west and settled among the young vines of Yamhill County. “The fact that they came through Oregon at the time they did really influenced west coast viticulture,” he said. “Thirty years ago,” he said, “we never dreamed of planting vines west of Carlton.” But it’s done extensively now.