Page 88 - SOM FALL 2017 BOOK

feature | haunted wineries

Dancing at Agate Ridge. This image was previously provided by Agate Ridge for an article about music at local
wineries. Pictured are people dancing and having a good time. Above is the same image zoomed in and turned to
black and white at higher contrast. No other enhancements have been made. Do you see a face in the window?
AGATE RIDGE

as they painted, the door drifted shut. Ashley barely noticed, until she
“WHO IS THAT WOMAN IN THE WINDOW?” headed to the hallway to check her cellphone. The door wouldn’t open.
She tried. Matt tried. The knob whirled and there was no latch. Still,
it wouldn’t open. One of their employees came up and tried from his
im Kinderman, General Owner/Manager at Agate Ridge side. Both men pushed and pulled, yet the door would not budge. Just
Winery, has fielded the question numerous times. She first as the guy in the hallway prepared to kick it open, the door slowly
Kheard of the ghost from curious customers who asked if Kim drifted open.
or her family lived in the old house where the tasting room is located.
They had seen a woman in an upstairs window, always the same win- They joked afterward that their ghost didn’t like the color they’d cho-
dow. No one lives in the house. sen for the bride’s room. (You can book the grounds for a wedding,
but don’t ask the ghost to be a bridesmaid—she might not show up.)
There’s been conjecture about the woman’s identity. It wasn’t Nick
Young, who fell from the barn roof and died, for the figure is always On a day of stormy weather and flickering lights, Ashley was visiting
a woman. When the Duggan family owned the property, one of their with guests in the tasting room. For-sale wineglasses sat on a top shelf.
daughters was killed by a stray hunter’s bullet as she mowed the front Suddenly the glasses flew off the shelf, landing on the floor and break-
lawn. Might she have returned? ing, six feet away.

Ashley Cates, Kim’s daughter and marketing and sales manager, has Agate Ridge carries on, despite their unnamed resident. The family-
firsthand experience. In 2013, she and her husband, Matt, worked bus- owned and operated winery is known for its laid-back atmosphere,
ily to transform a storage room into the bride’s room. One evening thus four onsite dogs. They are farmers first, with a passion to make

86 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | fall 2017