The Asante Foundation has called off next year's Oregon Wine Experience, which from 2015 to 2023 had been the foundation's highest profile fundraiser.

The Asante Foundation is canceling its highest-profile fundraiser — and one of the largest charitable wine events in the state — citing skyrocketing event costs that prevent it from penciling out.

The Oregon Wine Experience, which gathered wine aficionados, master sommeliers and some of the state’s best wines beneath a 38,000-square-foot tent in Jacksonville, raised more than $12 million for children’s health care programs between 2015 and 2023.

According to Asante Foundation Communications and Marketing Manager Desirae MacGillivray Myers, what’s preventing the foundation from carrying on the event in 2024 are factors such as high labor costs, inflation and ensuing rising costs of goods and services.

MacGillivray Myers called the cancelation “one of the most difficult decisions we’ve ever had to make.”

“It was Asante Foundation’s signature fundraising event,” MacGillivray Myers said. “It brought people together for a very worthy cause.”

“Some of the industries that make Oregon Wine Experience happen were some of the hardest hit by the pandemic,” MacGillivray Myers said. “It’s just not meeting it in a post-pandemic economy.”

“We need to be mindful of that and stay true to our mission,” MacGillivray Myers added.

The event has roots going back two decades, when the late Lee Mankin of Carpenter Hill Vineyard, Joe Ginet of Plaisance Ranch and Cal Schmidt of Schmidt Family Vineyards founded what was then known as the World of Wine Festival.

World of Wine moved from Gold Hill to Jacksonville’s Bigham Knoll Campus in 2011, and Asante Foundation partnered with the local wine industry to take over the festival in 2014 to make the event Asante Foundation’s “annual signature fundraising effort,” according to the festival’s website.

The first Oregon Wine Experience in 2015 grossed close to $300,000 for Children’s Miracle Network and the Asante Foundation. The event’s Oregon Wine Competition expanded its scope to all of Oregon in 2016, and by the early 2020s, the judges’ panel included renowned oenophiles and master sommeliers.

In quotes attributed to Asante Senior Vice President and Chief Philanthropy Officer Andrea Reeder, the funds raised at the event “will continue to have an impact.”

“You helped raise more than $12 million, and as we watch the new Olsrud Family Women’s and Children’s Hospital at Asante Rogue Regional Medical Center get close to completion, we are so proud of your impact — it has truly made a difference,” Reeder said.

Despite discontinuing its signature fundraising event, MacGillivray Myers said that Asante Foundation does not expect the decision to impact its bottom line.

“Our goal is to maintain our relationships with our sponsors,” MacGillivray Myers said. “We don’t see this impacting our fundraising in a major way.”

“However, it will help us conserve a significant amount of resources.”

No layoffs are expected. MacGillivray Myers said that the goal is to shift responsibilities within the foundation’s core events team “in different ways, but they will still be a part of our team.”

“The decision around Oregon Wine Experience is not going to impact staffing at the foundation,” MacGillivray Myers said.