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Emily and Dunbar |
The Carpenter Family has been farming along Foothill Road in Medford for over a century. Enticed to come to the valley by Reginald Parsons of the neighboring Hillcrest Orchard, brothers Leonard and Alfred Carpenter planted their pear orchards in 1909 using draft horse teams (background photo above). Horse teams gave way to tractors, and further changes ensued when nephew Dunbar Carpenter returned to Medford after World War II and took over the operation in 1946.
Dunbar and his wife Jane built a house on the “rocky knoll” along of Hillcrest Road in 1954, where they raised three children, Karen, Dunbar Scott, and Emily. They expanded the pear operation during the ensuing decades and packed pears in their own packing house under the Dunbar of Medford skiing pear label. In the mid 1970s, Dunbar began planting wine grapes on the slopes below their house, experimenting with different varietals and cultivating techniques.
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Dunbar and Jane’s daughter Karen and her husband Stuart Allan returned to the Rogue Valley in the late 1970s. Emily and her husband Brian Mostue also returned in the early 1980s. In addition to other professions, Emily and Brian became increasingly involved in the expanding vineyard and established the hay operation that replaced most of the pears. By 2006 the painstaking process of cultivating premium wine grapes was well established, and Brian and Emily’s son David had become highly involved in the vineyard and larger farm, the fourth generation to work the family farm. |
