Some winemakers see a sparkling future

"I'm drinking stars!"

So — legend has it — Dom Perignon cried when he tasted his new invention, sparkling wine. Unfortunately, the legend is pure myth.

While certainly warm climate regions make fine bubbly (Cava from Spain being the best example), it was the cool climate Champagne that achieved greatness, so much so that Champagne has become synonymous with sparkling wine.

The two main grapes of Champagne are pinot noir and chardonnay (a third, pinot meunier, is in limited planting), and so it should be no wonder that another cool climate region, which just so happened to be growing those same grapes, would quickly gravitate towards sparkling wine. That region would, of course, be the Willamette Valley.

Fred Arterberry Jr. was the first, in 1980, to produce a pinot noir/chardonnay blend, followed by a riesling bubbly.

Not long afterwards, Chateau Benoit, with Rich Cushman as winemaker, started up a sparkling wine program.

Cushman went on to work for dozens of other wineries as winemaker and consultant, leaving a trail of sparkling wine behind him. Most notably, Laurel Ridge, Flynn (now defunct) and Edgefield.

Mark Vlossak in the mid-1980s read an article by Andre Tchelisthcheff, claiming Oregon was the most likely place to grow sparkling wine that could rival those made in Champagne. Intrigued, Vlossak, apprenticed under Arterberry, and eventually started St. Innocent winery in 1988, with a focus on sparkling wine. For a long time he made some of the finest small production bubbly in the state.

But the line in the sand was drawn in 1987, when a team led by Australian Brian Croser, with Rollin Soles helming the wine making duties, started Argyle winery.

They came to Oregon with enormous ambitions, starting out with a production of 20,000 cases of bubbly — a huge commitment, both in time and money.

While there was plenty of excitement, there was an equal amount of skepticism. Could a big-time winery survive by banking everything on sparkling wine? After 20 years the answer is clear; sort of.

While Argyle has had to diversify, with a line of still wines from riesling to pinot noir, the sparkling wine remains about 25 percent of total production. And there is no doubt that they are Oregon's sparkling wine ambassador.

For Soles, he sets aside his jesting, teasing image, to proclaim, "Argyle has proven that the Willamette Valley is a significant, high-quality sparkling wine producing region, like Champagne. Though our wines are distinctive. They are unique."

But there are other wineries with a definite passion for sparkling wine, including Domain Meriwether, Ecosse, Kristin Hill Winery and J. Albin. But with limited production, they are sometimes difficult to find in the marketplace.

There is a third tier of sparkling wines.

These are a winery's one-shot, novelty, fun or special-event wines, usually sold only out of the tasting room.

Many of these are quite good. A short list includes Chateau Bianca, Shafer Vineyards, Elk Cove, LaVelle, Secret House and Big Fire.

And then there's Kramer Vineyards. Trudy Kramer wanted to add a sparkling wine to her already extensive lineup of wines, but didn't like the long, arduous, expensive process.

"We found that a lot of our customers don't like the acidity of Champagne," she said, "and some are allergic to the yeast leftover in the process."

So she found a carbonating machine, large enough to handle 65 cases of wine at a time. Now she simply takes a completed wine, puts it in the machine, cranks up the CO2 tank, and five days later, voila, a sparkling wine.

Currently Kramer Vineyards puts out a sparkling muller-thurgau and pinot gris, both semi-sweet, and a rosé, all about $15 a bottle.

"We tell people, if you like soda pop," she said, "you'll like our sparkling wine."

But otherwise, sparkling wine is expensive to make, and difficult to market. It's developed an odd stigma as being just a 'holiday' wine. Which is fine in November and December, but the rest of the year, it's a tough sell.

Vlossak, for one, opted out of commercial production of sparkling wine with vintage 2000. He confessed to me several years earlier that as much as he loved bubbly, it was hard to make money at it, "It's not a loss leader," he said, "it's a loss follower."

But things might be changing. On St. Innocent's Web site, a note declares that a small amount of sparkling wine was made in 2006, which should be released in 2012.

As for Oregon's future, Soles says, "my dream is that some day the great houses of Champagne will realize what we have in the Willamette Valley and invest here. They'd bring professionalism, and a commitment to quality that'd knock your socks off. We've known it a long time, it's a great place to make sparkling wine."