Even though I don’t have discernible taste buds, I am certainly fascinated by the Oregon wine industry.  I’ve gotten a little hands-on experience over the last three years thanks to some friends who grow and harvest Pinot noir grapes and bottle their own wine.  Also, since I’ve now lived in Oregon for three years, I’ve been able to experience grapes that I helped pick turn into wine through fermentation.  I asked my friends to recommend a documentary that I could watch on the history of grape growing in Oregon, and they suggested a PBS feature called Oregon Wine: Grapes of Place.

Through the years I’ve learned about and even met some of the Oregon wine pioneers.  In fact, the very first grower that I visited here was Ponzi, and eventually returned to that vineyard for a dinner hosted by the Ponzi family.  In a three-year span, I’ve enjoyed tasting wines at over 50 different wineries and/or tasting rooms in this area.  I’ve heard estimates of between 400 and 500 of these locations throughout the state, however according to recent analytics from Wines & Vines they now show Oregon with a count of 724, just behind Washington’s 753 and California’s 4,240.  At any rate, there are a lot of wineries that I have yet to visit, and the number keeps growing, as evidenced by the fact that just three years ago the Oregon figure was listed as 599.  New York, Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and North Carolina round out the top ten states for wine production.

The first grapes were grown in Oregon in 1847 by Henderson Luelling, a horticulturalist who traveled to the territory via the Oregon Trail.  The first recorded winery was Valley View Vineyard in Jacksonville, established by Peter Britt back in the 1850’s.  More importantly, the first indication that this wine was taste-bud worthy was a silver medal won by Ernest Reuter at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.  Prohibition then destroyed any potential for this industry to thrive, until its rebirth in the 1960’s.  Hillcrest Vineyard in Roseburg is credited as being the first in the state, established by Richard Summer, the “Father of Pinot” in 1961.  He and fellow U.C. Davis classmates David Lett, Dick Erath, and Charles Courey came to Oregon to experiment with cold weather viticulture using Pinot noir grapes.  David Lett “Papa Pinot,” achieved international notoriety for his 1975 Eyrie Pinot at the Gault-Millau French Wine Olympiades in 1979.  The overall winner of that competition was french winemaker Joseph Drouhin’s Grand cru 1959 Chambolle-Musigny.  The Drouhin family then started Domaine Drouhin  in 1987, providing our area’s fertile soil with additional International credibility.  Other Oregon wine pioneers began to harvest the Willamette Valley, including John & Nancy Ponzi, Jim and Loie Maresh, Ron and Marjorie Vuylsteke (Oak Knoll), Bill & Susan Sokol Blosser, and David & Ginny Adelsheim, to name a few.

I find it interesting that as the grape juices ferment, they pick up the flavor of their storage container and surroundings.  If it sits in a carboy, as many hobbyists tend to use, the wine can pick up a subtle taste of plastic.  Wooden or stainless steel barrels are preferable, but can be cost prohibitive.  In the early days of Oregon wine production, underfunded producers were forced to use used barrels that had picked-up the flavor of its former liquid occupant.  Eyrie used old steel Coca-Cola drums that they purchased inexpensively when Coke couldn’t use them to store syrup anymore.  Other wineries used old whisky barrels.  They all tried to create “moldy” storage facilities that resembled the cellars of Burgundy in France, hoping to capture the aroma of history.  I personally like a little Diet Coke in my Pinot, as opposed to Jack Daniel’s.  Did I mention that I don’t have the best sense of taste?

By the way, during that 1979 Paris wine competition there was apparently also some whining going on.  Becky Wasserman, a French wine exporter, visited the little know Eyrie winery in McMinnville and left with two bottles of 1975 vintage Pinot noir.   Without David and Diana’s knowledge, she entered them in the Gault-Millau French Wine Olympiades in October of 1979.  Eyrie scored in the top 10, a first for an American pinot.  Since it was a “French Wine” competition, the French challenged the results with a rematch, and the Oregon wine was pitted against the most famous house in the region, J. Drouhin, who is now ironically part of the Willamette Valley of winemakers.  Remarkably, the Eyrie Pinot Noir finished second, just two tenths of a point behind their 1959 entry.  Talk about overcoming an unfair advantage!  Oregon vines were just being planted in 1961, let alone face competition with a mature-vine, French Grand cru that had also been aging for 16 years longer.  This challenge (or whining) forever put Oregon Pinot noir on the world wine map, and launched today’s rapidly growing local wine industry.

As is traditional this time of year, I will participate in some grape crushing this weekend, a process that temporarily takes away your zest for wine, and leads you to drink beer instead.  I will also urge my wife to do a historical wine tasting weekend soon, so we can visit so me of these pioneer wineries that we’ve yet to explore, including Erath, Charles Courney, Maresh, Oak Knoll, Elk Cove, and Amity.  

Here is a list of those that I have already stopped in for a taste (or two):

Penner-Ash

Adelsheim

Raptor Ridge

Ponzi

Ponzi Estate

Argyle

Four Graces

Duck Pond

Cour de Terre

Willakenzie

Beacon Hill

Big Table

Arbor Brook

Stoller

Torii Mor

Saffron Hills

Lenee

Wildaire

Durant

Domaine Serene

Bergstrom

Shea

Laurel Ridge

Allero

Domaine Roy

Armonea

Evening Land

David Hill

Tualatin Estate

Coeho

Archery Summit

Cana’s Feast

Oswego

Ribera

Walleye

Plum Hill

A Blooming Hill

White Rose

Domaine Drouhin

Youngberg Hill

Lange

Rizzo

Ken Wright

Duponte

Eminent Domaine

Archer

Rex Hill

Hawk’s Eye

Anam Cara

Alexana

Panther Creek