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 Wine
Country > Oregon Appellations
Oregon State Appellations
About Oregon Oregon is a land of majestic mountains, undulating hillsides, fertile river valleys and spectacular seashores. The state straddles the temperate 45th Latitude-as does the Burgundy region of France-offering conditions ideal for the production of world class grapes. Unique growing conditions and favorable clay-loam soils have fostered Oregon's rapid emergence as one of the world's fastest wine growing regions. Since Oregon's wine renaissance in the 1960's, both the acreage of winegrapes and the renown of Oregon wines have grown meteorically. The state now boasts more than 170 wineries and nearly 11,000 acres of varietal grapes, proncipally Pinot noir, Pinot gris, Chardonnay, Reisling, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Muller-Thurgau, Gewurztraminer and Pinot blanc. Oregon has several different wine appellations, each a distinct and different wine region. The primary appellations are: Walla Walla, Columbia Valley, Williamette Valley and Unpqua Valley. Each appellation and their wineries are waiting for you. Collectively, these six wine-growing regions contain over 11,000 vineyard acres and over 200 wineries, which together produce over one million cases of wine annually. Most of Oregon's 200 wineries are small, family-owned operations. Roughly three-quarters are in the Willamette Valley, an appealing destination to travelers because of its temperate climate and proximity to Portland, Oregon's largest city. With a large collection of wineries, quality restaurants, and gracious accommodations, the Willamette Valley offers a wide variety of amenities to visitors. The Oregon wine region was born during the 1840s, when Italian and Swiss immigrants began planting wine grapes and bottling wine. Like so many wine regions, Oregon's wine industry was suppressed during Prohibition, only to emerge as a productive wine-growing region in the mid-1970s. Today, Oregon's wineries are in the national and international limelight as premier producers of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and many other varieties. Oregon wines, reflecting their generally cool growing regions, display bright, fresh fruit with an attractive crispness. They are rich, elegant, complex, and fruit-forward, wonderful accompaniments to a wide range of cuisines. The Willamette Valley, which stretches from Eugene in the south to Portland in the north and encompasses two-thirds of Oregon's population, is the largest wine-growing region in Oregon. Sheltered by the Cascade Mountains to the east and Oregon's Coastal Range to the west, and on the same latitude as France's famed Burgundy region, the valley has gained international recognition as a world-class growing district, especially for cool-climate varieties like Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay. To the northeast of the Willamette Valley are the Columbia Valley and Walla Walla Valley appellations, which Oregon shares with Washington These warmer, drier appellations are well-suited to the cultivation of red varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. In the southwest of the state are the
Rogue Valley, Applegate Valley and Umpqua Valley appellations. Although
generally drier and warmer than the northern wine districts and well-suited
to Bordeaux (Cabernet, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc) and Rhone Valley
(Syrah) varieties, each contains cooler microclimates allowing for the
successful cultivation of the Burgundian varieties that flourish in
the Willamette Valley. Oregon's Winemaking History by Lisa Shara Hall The Pioneers- 1840-1900 By the 1850s, Peter Britt – now a well known name in Oregon associated with a popular music festival which is held annually on the property of his former home in Jacksonville – is known to have grown wine grapes at his Valley View Vineyard. This was located in what is now the new Applegate Valley appellation of the Rogue Valley. The modern-day Valley View Winery was restored by the Wisnovsky family; they replanted grapes in 1972 and made their first wine in 1976. A census of 1860 reveals the statistic that Oregon's wine production was some 11,800 litres (2,600 gallons), but certainly not all of itwas Vitis vinifera. By the 1880s, two German immigrants, brothers Edward and John Von Pessls, came north from California to plant Zinfandel, Riesling, and Sauvignon in southern Oregon. However, it is not known whether the Sauvignon was Cabernet or Blanc. Another German immigrant, Adam Doerner, visited his friends the Von Pessls in the 1890s. He obtained Riesling and Sauvignon (once again, no specification) from the Beringer Brothers in Napa and returned to the Umpqua region of southern Oregon to make wine. Further north, in the Willamette Valley, Ernest Reuter had built a reputation by the 1880s for his Klevner wines; Reuter is purported to have won a gold medal at the St Louis World's Fair of 1904. (Klevner is a modern Alsatian or German term for Pinot Blanc, but has referred to various varieties, including Chardonnay.) Reuter's grapes were planted on Wine Hill, also known as David Hill, west of Forest Grove in Washington County, at the present site of the David Hill Winery. Prohibition Halts Oregon Wine
Industry in 1919 Fruit wines dominated production in a post-Prohibition Oregon; "Farmer’s Wineries" could be licensed by the late 1930s, and by 1938, there were twenty-eight bonded wineries, primarily producing fruit wines based on berries, Concord grapes, and other American hybrids. (Honeywood Winery near Salem, which has been in continuous operation since 1934, now produces both fruit- and viniferabased wines.) There were only two notable vinifera-based exceptions from the 1930s: Louis Herbold – who had grown grapes in Europe and who had the first winery bonded in 1934 – cultivated sixty-five varieties of grape, and Adam Doerner’s son, Adolph, who made a basic red wine that was sold only locally. His son Ray kept the winery going until 1965. The Modern Era In 1965, Charles Coury left California for Oregon to plant a wide range of Alsatian varieties – including Pinot Noir – on the exact site on Wine Hill in Washington County as the nineteenth-century Ernest Reuter. Some of Coury’s plant material was brought back to Oregon in his suitcase after he had spent a year in Colmar, Alsace at INRA (National Institute for Agronomic Research). The Pinot Noir era dates from 1965. David Lett, of the Eyrie Vineyard, first rooted Pinot Noir cuttings near Corvallis, while researching a permanent vineyard site. In 1966, he replanted them in the north end of the Willamette Valley in the Dundee hills – now the epicentre of Oregon’s wine industry – convinced that Burgundian varieties could be grown better in Oregon than in California. He approached the decision of what to plant by spending time in Europe studying what grew well, where, and by applying the priciples of a ripening date classification system first developed in 1888 in France by V. Pulliat. David Lett believed that Pulliat’s Period I grapes – in particular Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier, Muscat Ottonel, true Pinot Blanc, and Chardonnay – had the best chance of success in the climate of Western Oregon. This view of ripening contrasted with Amerine and Winkler's heat summation study and degree-days theory, a system as widely accepted in California then as now. Lett focused on Period I varieties, but now allows that Riesling – which is a Period II grape – can also be viable because its flavours develop early and the grape can be picked slightly underripe, as is the practice at times in Germany. From the cuttings he brought up from Davis, Lett planted what he had been told was Pinot Blanc. It has subsequently turned out that most Davis-sourced Pinot Blanc should really have been labelled Melon. Lett, however, thinks the cuttings he brought up to Oregon believing them to be Pinot Blanc were, in fact, Chardonnay. A Fledgling Wine Industry- the
1970's But it was David Lett who was to ignite the flame that first cast light on Oregon wine. It was his 1975 Eyrie Vineyard’s South Block Reserve Pinot Noir that put Oregon on the map. In 1979 in Paris, the French Gault Millau guide sponsored a grand tasting of wines from 330 countries to see how New World wines compared with the French. In the Pinot Noir category, David Lett’s Eyrie was placed among the top ten. Beaune négociant Robert Drouhin staged a follow-up match in Beaune in early 1980; this time, the Eyrie came second, less than a point behind the Drouhin 1959 Chambolle-Musigny. The international press jumped on the story, and Oregon was placed on the world’s wine map. This success continues to be a major component of “The Oregon Story” and is used as a benchmark against which to compare the achievements of Oregon wines today. Robert Drouhin strongly endorsed the success of the 1980 Beaune tasting by purchasing land in 1987, and building a state-of-the-art, gravity-fed winery in 1989, within sight of Lett's own vineyards in the Red Hills of Dundee. The Connection with France is
Strong David Adelsheim (at left) took the lead, after a local 1974 tasting of Oregon Pinot Noirs by winemakers, which focused intense interest in the Pommard clone and, for the first time, brought clonal discussions to a community level. Adelsheim was concerned: if different clones were available, how could he know which ones would make the best wine? At the time, only the University of California at Davis and the State University of New York in Geneva had importation licences and could bring in plant material from older, European wineproducing regions. Adelsheim went to France in search of new plant material to bring back for cultivation at Oregon State University (OSU). The initial variety focus for imports was supposed to be Pinot Noir, but Adelsheim made a trip to Alsace in 1975 and arranged to send back to OSU samples of all of the region’s grape varieties, including the then never- seen true Pinot Blanc. In 1977, authentic Gamay and a few clones of French Pinot Noir and Chardonnay made their way to OSU as well. By 1984 a relationship developed between clone expert Raymond Bernard (at ONIVINS in Dijon) and OSU, which resulted in the importation of the now-hot Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones that are today widely planted in Oregon and which started to bear viable fruit by the 1995 vintage. By the mid-1980s it became widely known in the United States that Oregon was bringing in clones from France to which no one else had access. As a result, California producers began purchasing plants from OSU, not Davis. When staff at Davis realized that, they forged a relationship with OSU that brought some of those clones to Davis. This was all a first – previously the flow of plant material had gone entirely in the other direction. Oregon’s important French link once came under strain when a French nurseryman figured out that the traditional French clones, which the French had paid to select, were being propagated in the US without the French receiving royalties. But the French connection is alive and well once more. In 1998, two commercial nurseries in California signed agreements with the French Ministry of Agriculture to pay royalties in exchange for a monopoly of select clonal material. Such clones are in quarantine in California, being evaluated for disease before propagation takes place. The Industry Matures Oregon is finally beginning to reach its maturity as a wine region.The early pioneers are still at it, but the next generation has already joined them in the cellar. At Ponzi Vineyards, Dick Ponzi’s daughter Luisa has assumed the role of winemaker; at Elk Cove, Joe Campbell’s son Adam is now in charge. Even at Domaine Drouhin Oregon, it is Veronique Drouhin Boss – Robert’s daughter – who makes the wine. With only forty years of modern experience, Oregon is now starting to develop into a region of some standing, and its bountiful potential is being utilized enthusiatically by its talented and innovative winemakers. But with barely more than one generation of experience, there is still a lot of history to be written. Oregon Appellation Maps
Oregon State Facts
Downloadable Oregon State Facts
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