Bearing Good Fruit: David O’Reilly (’87)

David O’Reilly (’87) is the subject of a featured article in Good Fruit Grower magazine, which declares that the alumnus vintner “has perfected the art of producing high quality wines and matching them with stories that resonate.”

The article describes how, through this combination of superior craftsmanship and creative storytelling, Mr. O’Reilly, owner of the of Owen Roe winery in Washington’s Yakima Valley, has achieved great success in the competitive wine industry. It also notes that he “graduated from Thomas Aquinas College, a small, Catholic, liberal arts college in southern California,” where “he studied the great minds of Aristotle and Plato,” and “left believing he could do anything.”

While this education, as author Melissa Hansen admits, “has little to do with winemaking” per se, O’Reilly sees it as a natural fit for his line of work. “A number of graduates from the program are winemakers,” he says. “That’s not surprising, because we studied the true, good, and beautiful, the same essence of agriculture. A winemaker is really a glorified farmer.”

The full story is available via the Good Fruit Grower website, as is a PDF of the entire issue.