The Spirit of Westmount
Westmount Wine Company is more than 100 acres in the heart of the Willamette Valley, and site-specific, terroir-driven wines. It is about the spirit of exploration and the journey in life. It is this spirit that brought the founders of Westmount Wine Company together, and is something that all that work here embody. The newest hire is no exception. Meet Robert (Robby) Kay. He travelled west all the way across the country to join our business development and marketing team, and we are excited to have him. We asked Robby to give us his first hand experience with his journey west and the spirit that drove him.
Who is Robby Kay
I’m from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mostly to my chagrin, I am a diehard Philly sports fan. I studied Communications and played tennis at the University of Delaware. I have a big family: three sisters and a brother as well as five nephews and three nieces. I love backpacking, exploring new places, hiking, fishing and golfing. Prior to coming to Oregon, I spent four years working for an internet startup company selling wine through flash sales. I first visited the Willamette Valley in October and fell in love with the colors and the lay of the land. I came back for an interview the day it snowed a foot in Portland but by that time, I was already sold on the place and the people. I met with Robert and Laurent and knew right away I wanted to work for them. I’m super excited to join the team as well as start to explore Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
Why Westmount and the Willamette Valley
As soon as I hung up the phone with Robert, I was jacked up. It was confirmed that I was accepting a new job in Oregon. I may have even given a fist bump to an empty room. From the way he had first spoke about Westmount when I met him in October, I knew Robert was someone I could learn from and would enjoy working with. He was intense but lively and seemed to really live his life the same way he spoke about it.
I do love Philadelphia and living in a big, vibrant city. The restaurants are great and I love seeing the skyline, especially from within the concrete and glass walls. Yet, it was when I visited Oregon this past October, that I was immediately drawn to a place where beauty and charm collide and blow you away from the minute you see it. The rolling green hills were especially gorgeous, covered with an assortment of fall colors and perfectly aligned vine plantings.
Though its Southern neighbor continues to steal much of the thunder, I would argue there is no place more beautiful than the Willamette Valley. The people whom I am soon to call coworkers are equal parts passionate and insanely nice and it makes the leap of faith that much easier to take. It won’t be without sacrifice. With a big, close and crazy family that has enabled me to be an uncle eight times over at the ripe age of 26, it wasn’t an easy decision to leave those people plus my friends behind and move somewhere where even a plane ride is six hours away. If I wasn’t sure that the Willamette Valley and the company I’m going to work for were special places, I’d still be eating cheesesteaks and maneuvering the concrete city streets. Instead, I’m soon to wake up every morning a part of wine country in the rolling green hills of the Valley with a view of Mt. Hood and the Cascade Range.
There’s something magic brewing in these hills and I’m happy to be a part of it. I’m eager to meet new people, make friends, explore the entire state and try some of the new outdoor activities it has to offer. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I chose the path to Oregon.
Trip Highlights
Every trip, whether it be for work or for vacation is at least partially, if not mainly defined by the food that was consumed. One of the first things I do when researching a new place is to check out their culinary scene, scouring blogs and reviews hoping to strike gold. Every region of the country boasts their own unique food scene and nothing is better than trying something new in the “home” of that cuisine.
Cheesesteaks are great if you’re at the right spot in Philly, but if you’re trying your first one in the Barcelona airport and it comes with mushrooms and bell peppers, your experience isn’t an authentic one (I witnessed this once and I’m still scarred). For this trip, covering such a large part of the country also meant getting to try a variety of different foods, spices, textures and flavors. Biscuits in Nashville, gumbo in New Orleans, crawfish in Houston, BBQ in Tuscaloosa, food trucks and breakfast burritos in Austin and Tex-Mex in Tucson highlighted what was both a foodie’s dream and a dieter’s worst nightmare. If I had to pick an absolute favorite meal from the trip, it would probably be my trip to BB’s café in Houston where I met a friend for a large crawfish boil. The only negative? I disregarded the waiter’s offer to provide me with a bib, and my perfectly good, solid t-shirt looked tie-dyed by meals end.
Reflection
Now that I’ve brought all my clothes in from the car, unloaded my toiletries in the bathroom and connected to the Wi-Fi in my new place, I can finally process the decision to move across the country and the road trip that went along with it. Although I had thousands of miles of open road to digest starting a new chapter, most of that time was spent listening to Spotify playlists and cursing at truck drivers who abruptly switched lanes. Even when I was reflecting on the decision to relocate roughly 3000 miles away, the feeling of excitement and anxiousness to drop anchor in Oregon overpowered any other thoughts.
Though my excitement has hardly waned, my arrival here in the Willamette Valley is real and no longer a figment of my imagination. I now work in wine country and I am eager to help the team. I feel very fortunate to be in the position I am. People talk about making a change in their life all the time but seldom do they follow through. I sought a change, put myself out there and when the time came took a leap of faith. It remains to be seen what this new chapter of my life will bring but I already know that I won’t regret the decision to take a chance.