Long May You Run
- Neil & Sue Shay
- May 28
- 5 min read
It's been an emotional year for several reasons, but now we're formally announcing that we are stepping away from full time ownership and management of Bluebird Hill Cellars and Bluebird Hill Vineyard. We are delighted to let everyone know, all our friends and all our followers, that we have sold our property and the Bluebird Hill Cellars business to a wonderful young family presently living in Seattle, Kevin, Cleo, and eleven-month-old Yichen Zhang. We are going to work as a team, the five of us, for the next two years, to transition all vineyard, winemaking, and marketing operations to the Zhang family. Sue and Neil will be staying on the property during the summer of 2025, but have indeed just closed on a home in Corvallis that they will move into over the summer.
Erin Murphy, our tasting room manager, will be staying in the tasting room, and we’re planning on her taking on some additional duties including local sales and marketing.
Kevin and Cleo are two delightful people. They were both born in China; Kevin came to America for college, he attended University of California, San Diego, where he double majored in computer engineering and mathematics. Cleo obtained her B.S. in Singapore, and then moved to America, attending Washington University, St. Louis, where she obtained a master’s degree. The two of them met shortly after, at work, fell in love and got married. Yichen was born June 16, 2024. Kevin is currently working as a software engineer; Cleo has stepped away from her work as a project manager to be a mom full-time to Yichen. Kevin and Cleo are thoughtful folks with great personalities and wonderful sense of humors. You will absolutely love getting to know them!
The Zhangs are wine lovers but are brand-new to winery and vineyard operations. Kevin has his ‘WSET-3’ credential and Cleo will have hers early this summer. Our plan is to work with them, part-time, perhaps for about two years, to transition all our winemaking and vineyard protocols to them; and remain a presence in the tasting room and at Bluebird Hill special events for at least the next two years, and hopefully far out into the future! We are absolutely thrilled that the Bluebird Hill label will live on, we will work with Zhang’s to produce future vintages in the same ‘Bluebird Hill Style’ that we have produced beginning with our very first bottling of Pinot Noir back in 2014.
We implore all of you, our friends, our wine club members, our regular customers, to support Bluebird Hill Cellars during the summer of 2025 and beyond, help us make Kevin and Cleo’s endeavor a success, and help keep Bluebird Hill Cellars a thriving wine brand from the Willamette Valley. Please plan to visit often and bring Bluebird Hill wine home to enjoy with your summer, fall, and winter activities!
Sue and I are proud of what we’ve accomplished in less than ten years of being open to the public: nine gold medals at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, ten platinum awards at the Great Northwest Wine Platinum Competitions, and being named ‘Oregon Winery to Watch’ for 2024 by Great Northwest Wines. More importantly than the awards, have been the great personal things that have happened to us along the way: making dozens of great friendships, working alongside great young folks, mainly from OSU in one way or another, friendships with other wineries, wine shops, restaurants, and distributors who have supported us, and great travels and great fun at so many of the wine festivals we have attended since we opened in 2016. So, thank you all, for being a part of this most wonderful experience we have lived through since deciding to go into the wine business back in 2013.
Now, as many of you faithful blog readers are familiar with, we often pair a blog post with a song, usually a classic rock offering - - this post is no exception, for reasons based on the sentimental nature of the song, and Neil Shay’s love and admiration of Neil Young’s music, our choice for this post is ‘Long May You Run’, actually a collaboration between Young and Stephen Stills, released nearly fifty years ago (no, can it really be??), in 1976. Young wrote this song as a sentimental ballad to the first car he ever owned (e.g. ‘chrome heart’), but when we listen to it, we substitute our wine business, our friendships, and our own on-going lives as the subjects of the song. We invite you to listen to Neil Young sing this song (with Willie Nelson backing him up) from the long-past Farm Aid benefit concert:
Here is a nice passage from the song:
“We’ve been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come
We found things to do in stormy weather
Long may you run
Long may you run, long may you run
Although these changes have come…
With your chrome heart shining in the sun; Long may you run”
Since this news is so important, we will make the wine and vineyard section short in this blog: We’re open all summer long, Friday through Sundays, noon to 5. Erin will be in the tasting room, and you will often see Neil and/or Sue on the weekends. The vineyard is looking absolutely spectacular, beautiful and healthy!! We encourage all of you to stop out and find a spot where you can enjoy a view of the vineyard and the valley. Don’t be a stranger!
We are pleased to announce these special weekend events this summer:
June 7-8 Open House with Neil, Sue, Kevin and Cleo
June 28: Wine club party with Neil, Sue, Kevin and Cleo – Theme TBA
Neil and Sue are again organizing a charity golf outing. This year’s event will be August 4th (Monday) at 1:00 pm, at Corvallis Club. Scramble format, with a twist, more details to follow in a separate announcement. Our local charities supported by this event include the Old Mill Center for Families and Children, the South Benton County Food Band, and the maintenance fund for our local Alpine Chapel Park.
August 2: Wine club party with Neil, Sue, Kevin and Cleo – Theme TBA
August 30: Wine club party with Neil, Sue, Kevin and Cleo – Theme TBA
We have a lot to be thankful for. It's all of you that have made it possible for us to live our dreams every day. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope to see you on the Hill or at one of our upcoming events in the near future!
Best always, Neil and Sue
It’s very bittersweet, as I have very fond memories of wine tasting and coming to events at BlueBird. I still remember the very first time I came with some girlfriends and Neil poured our tastings and educated us on the wines. I joined the wine club that very day, as well as bought wine and future wine still in barrels. You are both very special people and have created some of the best wines I’ve ever tasted. I wish you nothing but happiness and adventures in the next phase of your life. Maybe we’ll see you over here in Portugal again soon? Best, Ellen