When I recently visited
Jim Clendenen of
Santa Barbara's Au Bon Climat, he described Oregon as the most confused place on the planet. As a fellow Pinot Noir (and Chardonnay) producer, he found it hard to understand why so many producers were searching out difficult sites that result in low yields and, consequently, high-priced wine. The emphasis on difficult sites may produce individual wines with distinct character, but it makes it almost impossible for producers to run a commercially successful business, at least on a scale that allows their wines to be known out of the state.
Two years previously, I had visited Willamette Valley - Oregon's most important wine-producing area - and I understood what Clendenen meant. Many wineries were making expensive, single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, all of which were very good but at prices which were difficult to justify. I thought that Oregon producers needed to diversify the range of their wines to make them both more affordable and engaging. This week I attended a tasting of Oregon's wines in San Francisco called Pinot in the City, and I was interested to see just how Oregon had progressed in explaining itself to the outside world.
a little history
Oregon's winemaking history is young, beginning in the 1960s. The major protagonist in its development was David Lett, who died in 2008. He studied at UC Davis and decided, against his professors' advice, that Oregon was the best place to plant his favoured Alsace and Burgundy varieties. He planted Pinot Noir in the Dundee Hills - now the prime AVA for the grape - in 1965, establishing
Eyrie Vineyards, still Oregon's best and most distinctive producer.
Sometime later, in 1979, his 1975 Pinot drew attention at a Paris tasting: Robert Drouhin of Burgundy was so impressed that he entered the same wine into a more formal tasting in Beaune the next year, where it came second only to Drouhin's own Burgundy red. Oregon, an obscure, Pacific state, was all of a sudden on the international map for Pinot Noir. Robert Drouhin took his admiration further, encouraging his daughter, Véronique, to work in Oregon after completing her oenology degree in Dijon in 1984. Three years later,
Domaine Drouhin of Oregon was established with Véronique as the winemaker. That French backing further cemented Oregon’s reputation.
The last few years have seen an astonishing growth in the number of producers, including those from elsewhere in the US and France. Despite the growing industry, the state’s wineries remain very family-orientated: both a virtue and a vice.
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| Domaine Drouhin |
Pinot Noir
As a cool-climate grape, Pinot Noir is not an obvious fit for the USA. California’s Pinots were until recently fruity, oaky, made like a light-coloured Cabernet, which is one of the reasons why David Lett and others decided Oregon was a better fit for the grape. The cool, and often wet climate certainly suits Pinot Noir, and it now dominates plantings. Of all the New World Pinot Noir regions, Oregon is the one that produces wines most similar to Burgundy: high acidity, lightly ripe red fruits, with earthy game flavours even in the younger wines. However, I am not sure that Oregon producers have the confidence to allow the grape to speak for itself: many of the wines I tasted at Pinot in the City were aged in 40% new French oak. In some cases, this use of oak was well integrated, but in many the oak was too obvious, resulting in over-aggressive, spicy flavours. Oregon’s coolness and its variety of soils don’t necessarily need that much intervention.
Nevertheless, I drew two positive conclusions from the tasting. The quality of the Pinot Noirs was consistently high, even if too much oak was being used. Moreover, although Oregon is a young wine region, enough producers go back long enough to demonstrate the longstanding quality and substance of the state's Pinots. I tasted several library wines, dating back to the 1990s (including a giant 1994 Methusalem). The spicy game I encountered in the younger wines had matured into a measured, animal earthiness, with both red and black fruits fresh enough to make the wines still immediate and appealing. It may well be that Oregon's Pinots are, rather like Burgundy's, best laid down than drunk young.
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| Pinot Noir at Adelsheim (2013) |
other grapes
Nearly two-thirds of Oregon's grapes are Pinot Noir. No other major wine region has such a dependency on one variety - only New Zealand with its Sauvignon Blanc comes close. Where there's Pinot, there should be Chardonnay, but Oregon has a chequered history with the grape. Chardonnay clones more suited to California were initially planted so that most producers became convinced that the grape could not succeed there. One exception to this was David Lett, who planted his own cuttings taken from European vines planted in the 1930s: Eyrie's Chardonnays are still some of the best, ageworthy, and unique white wines from anywhere in the USA.
In the early 1990s, the French came up with an answer for Oregon's Chardonnay issue: clones of the grape taken from Burgundy, popularly called Dijon Clones, which were much more suitable to Oregon's climate. Scarred by their experience with Chardonnay, too few producers take advantage of these clones, but those that do make exceptional Chardonnays, with crisp, dry acidity and an almost raw texture. I believe that Chardonnay offers an alternative future for Oregon but only a handful of producers seem to dare to share that vision. I don't like to encourage yet more wines from such a ubiquitous grape,
but Oregon has the potential to make Chardonnays that can compete with
the world's best. Adelsheim, one of Oregon’s older producers, Domaine Drouhin, and
Bergström are wineries that demonstrate the potential in the state.
I tasted more white wines than I was expecting at Pinot in the City. Many of them were Alsace grapes, with Chenin Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, and Viognier thrown in. Although producers are focusing on cool-climate grapes, for such a young region there needs to be a focus on one or two white grapes which sum up the state. With Pinot Noir, that’s how Oregon has come to be known around the world. Chardonnay fits the bill as a recognisable white grape that consumers can identify with, but so does Riesling. This is a grape that the US struggles with, but Oregon's cool, long growing season should be ideal for the grape, making the state's stand out from the rest of the country. At Pinot in the City, only one producer brought a Riesling; another,
Chehalem, which makes excellent examples, brought a Grüner Veltliner instead.
There is also another side to Oregon that is rarely tasted outside the state. Cool, wet Columbia Gorge is an AVA shared with Washington, not that far from Portland but further inland - and one that Washington winemakers seem to use and understand better than Oregon’s. As Oregon reaches further from the ocean it becomes desert-like, sharing more AVAs with Washington (particularly Walla Walla and The Rocks District, which is entirely within Oregon but also entirely within Walla Walla, one of Washington’s best-known AVAs) and Idaho. To the south of the Willamette Valley, towards the dry heat of California, are more wine-producing areas, where Syrah and Spanish grapes like Tempranillo and Albariño are of interest. These AVAs are little known outside the state, and remain relatively underdeveloped.
the future
It's both perverse and arrogant of me to predict the future of the wines of a state I haven't visited in two years, or to offer advice. But Oregon is such a distinctive state, producing wines like nowhere else in the USA, that it could offer a more vibrant, varied, and challenging selection of wines than it currently does. My advice, for what it's worth, is:
- use less new oak for Pinot Noir
- make more good-value, friendly, yet still quality Pinot Noir
- concentrate more on Chardonnay
- experiment with Riesling for further variation
- for the time being, forget all other white grapes, especially Pinots Gris and Blanc
- start marketing the wines properly
- what about the rest of Oregon? Washington seems to understand its shared AVAs more, while the south of Oregon is overlooked. Get those wines into the market, as they may represent better value and give more variety.
Oregon needs to get over its Pinot Noir obsession, even though it produces such good, international quality versions of the grape. It needs to back up those wines with variety and choice. Rather than making wines for their own pleasure, Oregon needs to think about a much wider audience.
tasting highlights
Adelsheim Caitlin's Reserve Chardonnay 2013 ($45) ✪✪✪✪✪
Belle Pente Estate Reserve Pinot Noir 2011 ($48) ✪✪✪✪✪ and 2004 ✪✪✪✪✪
Bergström Vineyard Pinot Noir 2013 ($85) ✪✪✪✪✪
Chehalem Reserve Pinot Noir 1994 (magnum) ✪✪✪✪
Domaine Drouhin Arthur Chardonnay 2013 ($35) ✪✪✪✪
Erath Pommard Clone Prince Hill Vineyard 2009 ✪✪✪✪✪
Yamhill Valley Vineyards Reserve Pinot Noir 1994 (Methusalem) ✪✪✪✪
