Oregon Convention Center (OCC) is delighted to announce that our food and beverage partner pacificwild Catering is now serving Coopers Hall keg wines – the same exceptional, sustainably produced Northwest wines served at their local Portland taproom.
Coopers Hall Winery and Taproom, located only .07 miles from the Convention Center, is dedicated to keg wine production and the first operation of its kind in Oregon. What’s significant about keg wine? It’s much more sustainable. Each keg of wine eliminates twenty-six 750ml glass bottles from undergoing the highly resource-intensive recycling process, or sometimes simply being added to the waste stream.
In the five years that Coopers Hall has served wine exclusively in kegs, they’ve saved over 325,000 glass bottles from disposal, along with the corks, labels, and cardboard associated with bottling.
Coopers Hall Vineyard is both LIVE and, like the OCC, Salmon-Safe certified. The LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) certification process is modeled after standards that are highly regarded by winemakers and consumers internationally. The program aims to improve grape quality, diversify the agro ecosystem, and reduce the use of fuels and chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers.
Each harvest season, Coopers Hall returns the composted grape "waste" from the previous harvest back to the vineyard in an effort to reclaim nutrients that would otherwise require the soil to be amended using petroleum-based products.
And then there’s the matter of freshness. Once tapped, keg wine stays fresh for up to eight weeks, which also goes a long way to reducing waste. “Our bartenders can pour 110 glasses per keg, which will greatly expedite service as well,” says Lindsay Pearson, pacificwild Catering's Assistant General Manager. “Quality is never compromised. Coopers Hall keg wines are among the finest produced in the Pacific Northwest, a region renowned for its outstanding wines.”
“We look forward to surprising and delighting our guests with this very special and sustainable offering at their next soiree, event or reception,” says Cindy Wallace, OCC’s Sales and Marketing Director. “Our OCC and pacificwild teams are eager to share this exciting new offering with our clients!”
About the Oregon Convention Center
The Oregon Convention Center is owned by Metro and managed by the Metro Exposition and Recreation Commission. OCC is a sustainably operated LEED® Platinum facility that hosts groups from around the world and brings millions of dollars into the Portland and Oregon economy.