Community Spotlight: The Wine Reserve In Oregon, WI

Community Spotlight: Get to Know the Wine Reserve in Oregon, WI

We sat down with with Steve and Joyce Dieter at The Wine Reserve in Oregon. We want to introduce them and hear a little bit about how the Wine Reserve came to be.

Steve: We've been long time residents of Oregon, our kids have grown up here and we love the community and the downtown, but my partner and I felt like something was missing (a place to go and have a nice glass of wine after dinner). It was a long process, but we found a location and here we are today.

Kelley: I think a lot of people might not know that you serve other things besides wine. Do you have specialty drinks that you offer?

Steve: The main focus of the wine reserve is the self-serve wine system, which we can show you. But we also have a full bar where we offer specialty cocktails - we actually have a pretty extensive bourbon, scotch and tequila selection as well.

Kelley: My favorite is the sangria, the red one.

Joyce: We found out that bourbon is actually very popular around here.

Steve: We're constantly adding to that selection.

Kelley: What if somebody wants to host an event here? Do you have things going on regularly that people can come check out?

Joyce: That is a great question, and I think it's a fabulous space for you to have a smaller gathering. In the summer, we have a great patio in the back that is a wonderful space for people to get together. We've had everything from baby showers, bridal showers, graduation parties and birthday parties.

We offer a service which is a lot of fun for the guests of honor to do, which is we can saber bottles - we enjoy teaching people how to do it, and then watching them do it -  it's usually very well received.

This is one of the reasons why we decided to close on Mondays: so we would have at least one night open for private events. We've also had a lot of events over the weekend in the middle of the day, just before we open to the public.

Steve: Mondays are when we also do our own special events like wine tastings or bourbon tastings that are ticketed ahead of time.

Kelley: Okay, and you can find all of those events on your Facebook page?

Steve: Facebook page and our website.

Kelley: We had a wine night here with clients and it was really fun; we enjoyed the patio.

Joyce: Wednesdays end up being popular because of "wine out" Wednesdays. We also really love to be connected with the community so we allow people to carry food in. We do offer cheese boards and some light snacks, but most of all we just want to create a nice warm place for people to gather and also, it's great if we can help our partners in the community. So people have brought food in from our local partners, but then they get their wine or their cocktails from us.

Kelley: Perfect. Do you want to show us how the wine selection works?

Joyce: Sure, that's our favorite part.

Steve:  We generally have eight whites and eight reds, and we change them out roughly seasonally so there's always a pretty good mix.  When you come in to The Wine Reserve and you want wine, talk to one of our servers and you can open a tab and trade either your license or a credit card for our wine cards.

These [cards] work in the machine, and they allow you to try any of the wines here and in various size pours. If you want to taste two or three just find out what you like, then you can pour a larger glass of one you want to sit down and enjoy.

You want to try it out?

Kelley: Sure. All right. So I just stick the card in [the machine]?

Steve: Take your glass and hold it under the spout, and then hold your finger on the pour that you'd like, and hold it until it starts to pour.

Kelley: It's fancy.

Steve: We also offer a wine club - for a monthly fee, you're delivered two wines. We offer a different selection each month. You can choose from reds or whites, whatever you prefer, and then at the end of the year, we get the entire club together and have a private celebration here as well.

Kelley: Oh, that's fun.

Steve: We get quite a variety of people here. We'll have, as Joyce mentioned, "wine out" Wednesdays and those kind of things, but it's neat to see couples come in and one person likes wine but the other one wants to have a cocktail or beer - that's one of the things we wanted to make sure we were able to offer to everyone.

Kelley: I'm still kind of a newbie to Oregon, so I'm looking around this building and it's beautiful. Does it have a lot of history?

Steve:  The building itself was built in the 19-teens. We're still learning about the history, but it was originally a bank that failed during the Great Depression so it hasn't been a bank for almost a hundred years - so it's had a lot of different lives and we're actually learning about that as we go too.  There's lots of people here that have lived here a lot longer than us, and they tell us about when they were a kid, it was the post office, and it's been numerous other buildings and display rooms and office buildings. There was a lot of rehab work done right before we moved in, so it's not a place that people recognize when they come in for the first time and see it as The Wine Reserve.

Kelley: Awesome. The ceiling is beautiful.

Steve: It has a new tin ceiling and we exposed the brick. As far as we know, it's the first time the brick has been visible in over a hundred years.

Kelley: Wow. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today. Really appreciate you.

Joyce: Thanks for having us. This is great.

Kelley: If you haven't been to The Wine Reserve, make sure you come check it out and you can check all their social media for their hours and all the new specials.