Shallon Winery Collection

12 linear feet

This collection contains insight into the life and winery of Paul van der Veldt. The collection partially focuses on his winery Shallon Wine and his achievements. This includes newspaper articles about his endeavors, packaged wine labels for his own wine, and several designs for wine labels. The collection also holds a lot of personal items such as photos of himself and older photos of his mother and her family. There are also multiple items related to wine found in this collection: an assortment of wine glasses, multiple bottles of wine, some of which were Paul’s own creation such as the Lemon merengue pie wine, and a vintage French army jerry can.

Arranged into 5 series: 1. Business. 2. Written material. 3. Miscellaneous. 4. Personal. 5. Wine material

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• English

• Latin

Donated by Mark Kronquist on March 13, 2025.

Jereld R. Nicholson Library, Linfield University

Biographical note: Paul Van Der Veldt owned a one-man winery in Oregon and is famously known for making wine out of whey. He specialized in making dessert wines out of fruit and berries instead of grapes. He created several unique flavors such as a lemon meringue pie wine inspired by his mother, who was a baker in Oregon. Another one of his popular flavors was a chocolate orange wine where the chocolate was able to stay in the middle of the bottle instead of on top or at the bottom. He did all of this himself.
Prior to being a winemaker, Paul served in the U.S. Navy from 1950-1954 before moving to Astoria to work at his construction company. He soon became interested in the science behind winemaking and decided that he wanted to make his own. Thanks to his friends and a small collection of books (which are included in this collection) he was able to learn the ins and outs of wine making. He ran Shallon Winery in Astoria Oregon from 1980 to 2021, making and serving wine to tens of thousands of visitors, talking to anyone who stopped by because in his words “this is the only way I can keep up with what’s going on in the world”. Paul and his wines have been talked about in several newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Oregonian, and The Vancouver Courier.
Paul continued to make and sell wine until he sadly passed away in 2024. But during that time, he made a name for himself in Oregon. He entertained many guests with his charming and witty sense of humor. He gained a lot of popularity for wines that were unheard of. I will wrap up this short biography with a quote from Paul that I think sums up his opinion on wine: “If you want to drink for volume, drink beer but wine is food”.