Virginia wine will always be my favorite playground and where I truly began to appreciate and discover wine. However, I recently started a new job and was able to take a couple weeks off before it started, so I was determined to fit in a trip that included wine.
My first choice was Napa Valley, but sadly the fires made that impossible. Therefore I decided to visit Oregon, which has the 4th largest grape production in the United States, and on top of that has so many gorgeous sites and plethora of landscapes that I easily could have spent three weeks there instead of one week.
One of the reasons I chose Oregon was Pinot Noir is rarely grown in Virginia, and I wanted to challenge myself to try a wine I typically wouldn't love. Luckily, there are many shades of Pinot Noir in Oregon, and I learned a lot plus found other wines I liked too! This blog post will recap my winery visits and some of my favorite wines.
A special shout-out to Camille at Great Oregon Tours for putting together a great self-guided tour for me for Day 1 - Oregon wine country can be very overwhelming with over 600 wineries and many require appointments during the COVID area. One benefit of that was the return of guided tastings and the chance to interact with very friendly and knowledgeable staff - the people definitely enhanced my experience!
A Little Background
To put things in perspective, Oregon has 5 times the grape production of Virginia (10 million gallons and almost 800 wineries compared to Virginia's 2.1 million gallons and about 300 wineries).
Location is everything. In Oregon in addition to estate-grown grapes, vineyards lease small plots of huge properties due to the slope, soil type, and other qualities that make it perfect for their flagship grape, Pinot Noir. Vineyards take a lot of care to offer their top areas, or appellations, to wineries with a reputation for great winemaking, and it can get competitive. While in Virginia designated appellations, known in the US as American Viticulture Areas, don't tell you a lot about the makeup or quality of wine in that area, that is not the case in Oregon. Of the 16 AVAs in Oregon, the Willamette Valley AVA is the most well-known label and highly regarded, and 100% of the grapes in the vintage must be made in that particular 'appellation of origin' in order to use the label.
Oregon and the Willamette Valley in particular has a cooler climate than Burgundy, the best known region for Pinot Noir. This combined with mountain ranges that bring the ocean winds to moderate temperature but keep the rain from being too abundant, sufficient but often uneven sunshine periods, and well-draining volcanic 'jory' soils make it an ideal region to grow Pinot Noir but not without its challenges.
In addition to location, another critical aspect for Oregon Pinot is the origin of the vines you plant. The ability to make quality Pinot Noir is owed in large part to clones, a process where cuttings are made from a selected vine (in this case, European) and then grafted to another rootstock. The result is a new vine that has the same genetic makeup as the 'mother' vine, which not only saved European vines during a phylloxera disease outbreak in the 19th century but was very important to advancing the legitimacy and quality of Oregon Pinot Noir. Today the most common ones you may find on an Oregon Pinot Noir tasting list are Pommard, Dijon, and Wädenswil named after the location of the European graft.
Day 1: The Pinot Noir Palette
Hyland Estate
Hyland has a cool history with one of Oregon's Pinot clones, the "Coury clone".
According to their staff, Charles Coury was a meteorologist turned viticulturist, and wrote a thesis as part of his masters program at UC Davis that studied climate conditions conducive for growing Pinot Noir and helped advance the theory that Willamette Valley was one of those places. Legend has it that when Coury was working at the National Institute for Agronomy Research in Colmar, France, his request to take grafts of Pinot Noir was denied and he instead smuggled back to the United States. The grafts were planted in California in 1965 before being shipped to Oregon. The clones were planted in several Oregon vineyards, but Hyland was one of the earliest recipients in 1971.
Hyland has a significant presence in the Willamette Valley and has its own wine production firm that produces and sells wine under 20 plus labels. Their tasting room is tucked down a gravel road in Dundee, but most of their vines are in the McMinville AVA that was founded by four families in 1971. Some of the original 'Coury' clones still produce grapes today.
This winery offers what I would classify as more 'typical' Pinot Noir, and while that's not exactly up my alley I could definitely tell it was smooth on the front, well-made and complex. My favorite was the 2017 Pommard that was a tad dry on the end with good fruit flavors; cherry note lovers will like the 2018 Wädenswil.
If you are a red wine fan and enjoy Pinot Noir, I definitely recommend this winery.
Purple Hands Winery
Purple Hands Winery was hands down (pun intended) my favorite of my six visits not only because of the customer service with the guided tasting, but also because I found Pinot Noirs that I really enjoyed.
Purple Hands is the passion of Cody Wright, the son of Ken Wright who is one of the most well-known winemakers in the Willamette Valley. Purple Hands is a smaller producer that focuses on wine series from specific geographic locations that highlight each unique terroir.
The tasting room is a cute little building along the main road in Dundee, and all of their production facilities are on site as well. Some grapes are grown in the hills behind the winery but most are grown on other plots throughout the Willamette Valley.
You can definitely find a more traditional Pinot Noir here, but there are also several that are a bit more fruit forward which I was a huge fan of. All five wines on the tasting menu were the 2018 vintage and only get better further down the list - my favorites were the Shea with a nice chocolate smell, and the limited production Prestige which was a combination of their Latchkey and Wichmann Pinot Noirs and really brought out the best in both wines with cherry and vanilla notes.
Lenne Estate
The view and customer service at this winery were fantastic and definitely made me wish more wineries had a rooftop view! All of the wines at Lenne Estate are estate-grown by former pizzamaker Steve Lutz who cut his teeth in California wineries including Robert Mondavi. The winery is named in honor of his wife's grandfather who was a chicken farmer in Britain.
My wine tour guide explained while the elevation gives a fantastic view, the grapes are grown in a soil type called peavine that while well-draining is not only uncommon in Oregon but is very nutrient-poor. Not exactly the soil you look for when farming, so if they can make good wine from this kind of soil it's definitely worth trying!
This winery had mostly 2017 vintage options compared to my first two visits. I think Pinot Noir lovers would really like the 2017 Lenne Estate - it had a really nice balance of acidity and complexity with some red fruit flavors. My favorite was the 2017 Jill's 115 which had darker fruits and started out dry at the front but very smooth and fruity on the end. I also liked their 2019 Chardonnay which was aged in French oak and had a nice balance of fruit flavors.
Résonance Winery
Four wineries in a day is probably a bit much for me, so it was a good thing that this winery had the most laid-back tasting experience allowing me to enjoy the perfect weather as the sun went down. Résonance Winery is unique in that it is the first American project of Burgundy winemaker Jacques Lardière, who led winemaking at the Louis Jadot label for 42 years and was looking for a new venture.
This winery had the most contemporary tasting room of the four yet the colors allowed the building to blend in very well to the landscape- I wish I had been able to spend more time inside! My favorite Pinot Noir here was the 2016 Découverte which was drinkable with a nice mix of slight berry flavors.
Day 2: Lower Willamette Valley
I spent two days in Mount Hood and Terrebonne visiting Smith Rock State Park (highly recommend especially at sunset) and Painted Hills, so my drive back west towards the coast took me through Eugene, which is the very edge of the Willamette Valley and reminded me a bit more of Virginia in terms of the variety of wines and a bit more focus on a social atmosphere. What made it even better was the two wineries I visited were right across the street from each other and didn't require reservations!
Sweet Cheeks Winery
Sweet Cheeks Winery is beautiful - a large patio gives you a great view of the sloping hills of vines below no matter where you sit. The cute name was the inspiration of founder Dan Smith who named it after the shape of the land when he was out working on day. Their tasting was very affordable with a variety of whites, reds, and a rosé, and their wine very drinkable overall. One of the things I love about this winery is that their president and general manager are both female.
I liked that I got to try five different red varietals and three different Pinot Noirs. My favorite Pinot Noir was the 2015 Reserve that had a nice toasty smell and cherry flavors. I really liked their Chardonnay which smelled like apples but actually had a strong pear taste, along with the Tempranillo.
Silvan Ridge Winery
I was worried about driving a ways and not having a reservation, so I decided so visit Silvan Ridge Winery which was right across the street from Sweet Cheeks. This winery is also female-led with three generations of the Chambers family building the brand since buying the winery from Doyle Hinman in 1993.
Malbec is not a wine that normally comes to mind in Oregon, but it was definitely my favorite at this winery. It's less of a surprise when you find out that winemaker Juan Pablo “JP” Valot grew up in Argentina and worked in the Mendoza wine region before coming to the United States. A glass (and a bottle to go) was perfect to share with some delicious pizza on-site. They had two Pinot Noirs on the tasting menu, and I tried the 2017 Bradshaw which had nice plum flavors and a slightly spicy finish.
I hope this post makes you want to visit Oregon and see all it has to offer! Don't get intimidated by the number of wineries they have - there are several great tour options (including Trish from No Whining Wine Tours who I plan to try out on my next trip!).
Source: Oregon wine history and background provided orally by Hyland Estate staff , with research from Wine Enthusiast, sevenfitydaily and notes from the Oregon 2012 Pinot Noir Camp.