Learning & Tech❯Talks & Lectures

Join Erath and The Malarkey for a special evening that brings together two Oregon Originals. Hosted at Chef Brian Malarkey’s downtown Portland restaurant, this winemaker dinner pairs seasonal cuisine with Erath wines for a one-night-only experience celebrating the flavors and spirit of Oregon.

Throughout the evening, guests will enjoy a multi-course menu created by The Malarkey culinary team, thoughtfully paired with Erath wines selected to highlight the flavors, stories, and sense of place that define Oregon. Along the way, you’ll hear from Erath’s Head Winemaker Leah Adint and discover how a shared passion for hospitality, craftsmanship, and creativity continues to inspire both brands.

With limited seating, this is a rare opportunity to gather around the table for an unforgettable evening of food, wine, and Oregon tradition.

Autumn is cozy. The Alps are cozy. Wine is cozy. Drinking alpine wines in autumn? The coziest combination you can think of! Join us in mid-November for a lovely late morning of drinking and exploring a handful of wines from the Alpine regions of France and Italy, including the Savoie, Jura, Alto Adige, and Trentino.

The class will be led by Afton Kortz, Barnard Griffin's Wine Club Manager, who is a French Wine Scholar and holds a Level 3 certification in Wine from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET).

This master class will take place at Barnard Griffin's Vancouver tasting room (665 W Columbia Way, Vancouver, WA 98660) from 11:30am to 1:00pm on Sunday, November 15, 2026.

• Tickets are $35 for the general public, and $30 for Barnard Griffin wine club members.
• Tasting-sized pours (approx. 1oz each) of five or six wines and small, palate-cleansing snacks are included (attendees must be 21+ to participate).
• You can purchase tickets directly through Eventbrite, or by calling the Vancouver tasting room at 360-718-3387. Barnard Griffin wine club members - if you register online, we will charge your card on file one week before the event.

Classes are non-refundable within 7 days of the class. If you cannot attend and it is 7 or less days until the class, you may transfer the tickets to someone else. Please communicate any scheduling conflicts with Barnard Griffin ([email protected]).

The international wine world is finally calling the state of Oregon "The Next Champagne." Explore what makes our home state such a perfect place for growing world-class sparkling wine while tasting five delicious wines.

Wine tastings and light bites included at Syndicate Wine Bar.

The inaugural edition of a new monthly dinner series hosted at The Love Shack by Chef Garrett Benedict. Guests enjoy a five-course, family-style dinner featuring dishes being workshopped for the G-Love menu, with optional wine pairings and an open-ended Q&A with the chef after dinner. Limited to 38 guests, 21+.

This intermediate-level course offers an in-depth and expansive exploration of France’s most iconic wines. Dive into France’s best vineyards, learn about the country’s historic grapes, and discover how these wines intertwine with the history, cuisine, and culture of France.

Spanning three different valleys in the southern part of the State — Umpqua, Rogue, and Applegate — the Southern Oregon AVA is home to hundreds of vineyards and wineries that get little attention to the north.

Unique soil types, combined with moderate Pacific Ocean airflow and less precipitation create a Mediterranean microclimate perfect for growing wine grapes traditionally found in warmer European sites, like Portugal, Spain, and southern France. And yet, with the addition of some steeper, high-elevation, North-facing vineyards, so too are cooler climate grapes like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay cultivated. We taste through nine different wines from Southern Oregon that you will want to add to your home wine cellar!

Learn what makes a good vintage wine great. Explore how weather, heat, water and timing, translate into the chemistry, structure and flavor in your glass. Understand through tasting how climate change is quietly rewriting what a "good year" means in the industry.

Three half bottles of wine for tasting included in registration.

Climate change, especially in recent years, has escalated not only into a global environmental crisis but also into a highly intensified challenge in a time of political divides—often leaving one feeling overwhelmed and powerless. How can better conversations help move individuals, communities, and the planet toward collective solutions?

Called “one of the nation’s most effective communicators on climate change” by The New York Times, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist for The Nature Conservancy, has an uncanny ability to navigate all sides of the conversation on climate. With a singular balance of scientific rigor and storytelling, patience and empathy, and an abiding adherence to her faith, Hayhoe is often able to reach audiences that other climate scientists have not been able to reach — demonstrating that by finding shared values, we can better connect our unique identities to collective action.

WorldOregon welcomes Katharine Hayhoe back to Portland for this rich conversation exploring how to incorporate climate change into both our public decisions and private conversations at a moment of urgency when climate action and environmental policy are at a crossroads.

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose work bridges climate science, risks, and resilience. As Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), she directs the organization’s global scientific strategy and leads a global community of more than 1,000 TNC scientists and science staff whose work underpins every aspect of TNC’s mission: from conserving lands and waters to developing scalable, science-based solutions to the biodiversity and climate crises.

Featuring special guest Gary Hershberger (Mike Nelson) in person!

Joins us for the complete Twin Peaks series on the big screen for the first time in history! We continue our year-long celebration of the greatest TV show of all time The Missing Pieces. Rarely shown in theaters, this feature film presents deleted scenes from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me assembled together as an untold portion of the story’s prequel. Following a Q&A, we’ll then begin The Return with episodes “My Log Has a Message for You” and “The Stars Turn and a Time Presents Itself.”

Gary Hershberger will be signing autographs and taking photos with fans for an additional fee at the event.

Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari (Labor: One Woman’s Work) and fiction writer Danny Ramadan(Crooked Teeth) pivot from their usual work to author their own stories in their recently published memoirs. Both authors share powerfully nuanced accounts of resilience and autonomy, whether working to expand women’s access to healthcare in Afsari’s memoir, or navigating the brutal reality of being queer under oppressive regimes in Ramadan’s work. Moderated by journalist Claudia Meza.

A powerful memoir of medicine, identity, and family secrets from an esteemed ob-gyn as she unravels her grandmother’s mysterious death while reimagining women’s health care from a mobile clinic—for readers of The Beauty in Breaking and The In-Between.

In Labor: One Woman’s Work, Dr. Mary Afsari takes us on a deeply personal and transformative journey through her life as an ob-gyn. Set against the vivid backdrops of Portland, Oregon, and Shiraz, Iran, this powerful memoir intertwines the complexities of her professional life with the hidden truths of her family’s past, exploring the intersection of medicine, identity, and the enduring search for agency.

The story begins in the bustling corridors of an Oregon hospital, where Mary dedicates herself wholeheartedly to her patients—often at great personal cost. At the same time, Mary uncovers a long-buried family secret: the tragic story of her grandmother Mehry’s death in 1950s Iran. This revelation propels her on a quest to untangle the threads of her family’s history while confronting the forces that have shaped her identity and her professional mission.

As Mary struggles with the oppressive realities of the medical-industrial complex and the growing attacks on women’s reproductive rights, she chooses a path of bold defiance. Inspired by her grandmother’s legacy and her own commitment to compassionate care, she decides to take her work out of the hospital and on the road: she converts an RV into a mobile women’s health clinic. This innovative act allows her to deliver personalized, critical reproductive health care services across the Pacific Northwest, creating community and enduring friendships along the way.

“When women don’t have a choice, bad things happen,” Mary writes. Labor is an intimate, immersive personal story, a rallying cry in a post-Roe world, and an inspiring example of what women can do when they do have a choice. Rich with the voices of her patients and the vibrant cultural threads of her Iranian heritage, Mary’s story challenges us to rethink the boundaries of health care and reclaim the autonomy of women’s bodies and lives. With warmth, insight, and humor, Labor ultimately offers a vision of transformation, resilience, and the power of reclaiming one’s path and saving other people’s lives in the process.

“An engrossing account of one queer man’s journey through a life filled with danger, yes, but also great joy. A beautiful read that adds nuance to the stories of so many refugees.” —Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased.

“Writing this memoir is a betrayal.” So begins this electrifying personal account from Danny Ramadan, a celebrated novelist who has long enjoyed the shield his fiction provides. Now, to tell the story of his life, he must revisit dark corners of his past he’d rather forget and unearth memories of a city he can no longer return to.

Starting with his family’s humble beginnings in Damascus, he takes readers on an epic, border-crossing journey: to the city’s underground network of queer safe homes; to a clandestine party at a secluded villa in Cairo; through Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East, a reckless hoax that threatens the safety of Syria’s LGBTQ+ community, and a traumatic six-week imprisonment; to beaches and sunsets with friends in Beirut; to an arrival in Vancouver that’s not as smooth as it promised to be; and ultimately to a life of hard-won comfort and love.

What emerges is a powerful refutation of the oversimplified refugee narrative—a book that holds space for joy alongside sorrow, for nuance and complicated ambivalences. Written with fearless intimacy, Crooked Teeth is a singular achievement in which a master storyteller learns that his greatest story is his own.