This year’s Oregon Wine Experience (OWE) will be held from August 17-21…and it has a new home! Stephen Gambee, an owner/partner of Stage Pass, and Andrea Reeder, Vice President and Executive Director of Asante Foundation, sat down with the Review to share this exciting news. This year, the Oregon Wine Experience will be held at its new home at the Stage Pass site on South Stage Road on the outskirts of town, bordering DANCIN Winery.

Stage Pass provides 7 acres surrounded by grapevines that will accommodate the Oregon Wine Experience tents, event buildings, parking, and more…in a unique partnership. Gambee noted, “My family has been a steward of this land since the 1950s, and the current family members who are developing it wanted to make it a wine-focused community, which pays respect to Jacksonville’s history and heritage in the wine industry.”

Andrea Reeder, who oversees the Asante Foundation, explained, “The Bigham Knoll site in Jacksonville served our purposes very well for many years, but we’ve outgrown it. We viewed seven sites in the Rogue Valley for OWE, and Stage Pass is ideal. It’s four times the size of Bigham Knoll, and it creates the perfect backdrop nestled in the grapevines.”

To accommodate OWE’s 4,500 plus guests over the five-day event, new parking will be provided on fields, accessed by three roads connected to Bellinger Lane/South Stage Road. The site can accommodate the needs of the wine festival. This year, OWE anticipates a record crowd due in part to pent-up demand by the public to attend events after two years of dealing with COVID-induced shutdowns and event cancellations.

Stephen Gambee added that the long-term wine-centric vision for Stage Pass now includes OWE. That ongoing vision consists of an on-site winery production facility and a viticulture education center. “We have a passion for economic development, and wine is paramount to the tourism nexus…this move to Stage Pass is wonderful for tourism, Jacksonville, all regional wine partners, and the Oregon Wine Experience.”

Andrea Reeder added that the beneficiary of the five-day OWE celebration is Asante, focusing on children’s health care.

“The main events that support the charitable aspect of OWE range from the Medal Celebration, Founders’ Barrel Auction, Grand Tasting, Miracle Auction & Salmon Bake and more. To date, OWE has raised more than $8.2 million, benefiting the Children’s Miracle Network program and other health care programs at Asante.”

“The impact of OWE is bigger than ever. Over the next several years, this signature event will help generate $15 million to build the new women’s and children’s hospital-within-a-hospital, which will be located on the top two floors of the pavilion currently under construction at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center.”

With the move to its new home at Stage Pass, the Asante Foundation will now be making an even more significant impact on the healthcare community and serving more in need of medical care.