Mayor, winemaker, inventor, activist. Last November, Drabkin was named Mayor of McMinnville, Oregon, becoming the first woman and queer-identifying person to hold the position. Her political agenda includes advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, addressing homelessness, and combating climate change. She also owns and operates a vineyard called Remy Wines; and in 2020, she founded the nonprofit Wine Country Pride, which brings annual pride celebrations to the rural valley. Endowed with a healthy disregard for convention, Drabkin debuted the world’s first Queer Wine Fest in 2021, highlighting U.S. wineries with queer owners, winemakers, and vineyard managers. The event will be returning in June.
In the summer of 2022, Remy Wines unveiled a new facility built with a carbon-negative concrete formula named the Drabkin-Mead Formulation, which she helped invent. Hers is the first commercial winery to use this concrete mix, whose formulation is now open source.
