Visionaries put Oregonon the winemaking map

On the sun-tinged slopes of the Willamette Valley, leafy vines creep along trellises, fannedby cooling breezes. And grape growers carry out the delicate science of deciding when the fruit has reached its peak of perfection. It's a place where barrels of juice ferment in aromatic cellars and wine connoisseurs swirl glasses of the fruit of the winemaker's labor while watching the sun set.
 
 "It's a magical place. There's no place in the world like the Willamette Valley," said Jason Lett, a second-generation winemaker at The Eyrie Vineyards in Dundee.
 
With 200 wineries and 10,000 picturesque acres of vineyards, the Willamette Valley is Oregon's largest and most highly concentrated American Viticulture Area, according to the Oregon Wine Board. It is responsible for about 70 percent of the state's wine production — most notably pinot noir, and to a lesser extent, pinot gris and Chardonnay.
 
"The Willamette Valley is a special place because it's one of only about four places in the world where you can grow world-class pinot noir. That's really put it on the map," said grape grower Betty O'Brien, owner of Elton Vineyards.
 
"We have such a small quantity in the wine world — we're a drop in the bucket — but quality-wise we've been able to garner tremendous attention and accolades in the world."

Lett's father was a pioneer vintner in the 1960s, when people scoffed at the idea of Oregon wine. After falling in love with Oregon-grown strawberries, David Lett resolved that this was the place to plant his favorite grape, the pinot noir.
 
He settled on the hills of Dundee because of the area's climatic kinship to the Burgundy region of France, where the finicky vine is most successfully grown.

Despite the skepticism of his California colleagues, Lett started his vineyard with 3,000 grape cuttings and began the painstaking process of coaxing wine from the vines.

"Many of the people that came here were visionaries," said Pat Dudley, president of Bethel Heights Vineyard. "Often they were people on a shoestring budget. They were prepared to do things themselves; they were prepared to do things on a small scale; and they were prepared to not make a lot of money at it. It was a passion that brought people together from different places, and they formed a community."
 
Lett and fellow pioneers Charles Coury and Dick Erath stood firm in their belief that the valley could become a successful winegrowing hub, but they didn't gain the support of the rest of the world until Lett entered his pinot noir in the 1979 Gault-Millau French Wine Olympiades and won high honors against France's top labels.
 
His wine so impressed the world that Robert Drouhin, a prestigious winemaker from Burgundy, purchased land for a vineyard of his own here. Domaine Drouhin Oregon now has 90 acres in the Dundee Hills and produces award-winning pinot noir and chardonnay.
 
Lett also became the first in the United States to produce pinot gris, a wine few Americans had heard of, putting the region on the map a second time.

"In America, the Willamette Valley is notable not only as the place where American pinot noir first gained an international reputation with one of our wines, but it's also the American birthplace of pinot gris, which is the white variety of pinot noir," Jason Lett said.
 
"It's now the second most widely consumed white wine in the United States. That's been the real success story of the Willamette Valley."

Its ability to nurture cool-climate grapes makes the valley unique among Oregon's appellations. Southern and Eastern Oregon, the state's two other primary wine-growing regions, boast much warmer growing conditions friendlier to what insiders call the "big reds": syrah, merlot and cabernet sauvignon.
 
But it's not just the science of agriculture that makes the valley special. The pastoral beauty of the landscape provides the perfect backdrop for drinking in the culture and traditions of wine — a fact not lost on those who flock to the valley to combine scenic touring with the sampling of vintages.

The demand for wine touring has become so great that many wineries, including Eyrie, have opened tasting rooms.

"People come here for that down-to-earth, honest, unpretentious but incredibly sincere approach to winemaking," Lett said. "It's a real sort of artisanal approach. You see a great degree of seriousness and personal commitment."

That's because most of the wine industry here has remained in the hands of small family businesses that are committed to passing their accomplishments on to their children.

In fact, the industry is so local-centric that Chemeketa Community College developed a vineyard management and winemaking degree program in 1999 so vineyards wouldn't have to look outside the state for an educated workforce.

"If the industry is to grow, we've got to have a trained workforce," said D. Craig Anderson, who supervises Chemeketa's Northwest Viticulture Center. "My sense is there's room for a tremendous amount of growth. The supply is very much lagging behind the demand."

Then again, none of the pioneers came to the place David Lett dubbed "the Valley of Flavor" to make wine in bulk, said David Millman, director of Domaine Drouhin Oregon. They came to make the best wines they could.

"There's no reason someone shouldn't leave Oregon with a great memory and a great bottle of wine," Millman said. "I defy someone to leave without finding something they love."