pinotopia Oregon Pinot Noir Primer…Trouble in Paradise?
20 July 2008
by Alex Pacek
Fans of the Black Pinot know the legend well. Back in the 1960s, when Oregon barely registered with wine lovers and growers alike, a starry eyed dreamer named David Lett planted the first vines at Eyrie Vineyards in 1966. At that time, and throughout the 1970s, agricultural fantasies were confined largely to Christmas tree farms and ever-expanding marijuana groves. And it must be said, that all three growing interests more than occasionally overlapped. Lett’s initial success was followed by a slew of now internationally famous wineries in the mid 1970s—Oak Knoll, Ponzi, Elk Cove, Sokol Blosser, and many others, blazing a trail for the great expansion that was to come. This expansion was, no doubt, fueled by the sudden (and to many shocking) emergence of Oregon pinot noir onto the international stage, as the Beaver State’s pinots began winning awards and acclaim at the expense of, yes, well-established burgundies.
But following the successes of the 1980s came a series of bad to catastrophic vintages in the 1990s, causing many to question whether early predictions about Oregon as the “next Burgundy” were premature. 1999 and 2002 brought better news, and most recently the 2006 vintage is garnering heady praise from wine critics. But note perhaps one of the closest similarities with Burgundy that Oregon can rightly claim: a series of difficult vintages followed by one “classic,” and then a return to trouble again. Oregon’s fickle, often gloomy, and rarely predictable weather can be blamed partly for this inconsistency. But the human touch can bear some blame as well. Until quite recently, the over-enthusiasm to crown the Willamette Valley as the new Cote d’Or resulted in little attention paid to the types of vines planted, with the unfortunate result being wines that lacked substance, never quite came together, or cracked up early when they did. Oregon vintners didn’t help matters by often passing off these thin and nasty wines as “Burgundian in style” when nothing could have been further from the truth. Help came in the form of better clones and more attention to wine-making style, the result being that in the 21st century, Oregon’s pinot noirs are probably better then at any point in the state’s history.
And therein lies the problem. As a college kid, I remember visiting many of these wineries 20 years ago. They were rustic outfits, shacks more often then not, managed and staffed by bearish looking folks in flannel with huge beards. And it wasn’t lost on me that the flannel often carried a strange familiar resinous scent of a certain illicit plant grown in those parts. There was a youthful enthusiasm to their endeavors, and the pinots at the time, for all their inconsistencies, were true “volkswein,” an inexpensive affordable product that native Oregonians could take pride in, along with the offbeat characters who produced them. And no, this is not the point where I point the finger of blame south at California, whose hordes began moving into the state at about the time pinot noir was taking off.
But 20 years after that visit, I observed a very different scene at these wineries. They were large, clean, often antiseptic, and staffed by very business-like, well-dressed professional types. Likewise, I observed that virtually every car in the parking lots of these wineries had California license plates, and none of those cars were less-then expensive models. And I observed many, many cases, dozens sometimes, of $40+ and up wine being piled into those same cars. While Oregon pinot noir has never been better, it has also never been more expensive, with prices on average shooting into the stratosphere, as word of this, that, and the other winery’s cult status filtered south to the Golden State. It must be said that very few native Oregonians I know or met drink their own pinot noir any more, and instead look north to Washington state for cheaper (and often more interesting) wines beginning to attract attention.
So success has come with something of a cultural price attached, None other than “Papa Pinot” David Lett himself recently expressed some reservations about these trends, but also reinforced the fact that his state’s pinot noirs has never been better.
Some stylized facts:
Oregon pinot noir is NOT burgundy, and never will be. For starters, it simply doesn’t taste like burgundy, and usually lacks that characteristic smokiness and mushroom/forest floor trait so evident in good burgundy. Oregon pinot tastes of red, ripe fruit, with lots of mineral thrown in. If the Loire ever establishes itself a s a major pinot noir region, then it will find a closer approximation to Oregon then Burgundy. A more important point: Oregon pinot does NOT age. Repeat this several times if you plan on buying. I have tasted many 10+ year old Oregon pinots from good vintages and top producers, and they all had suffered considerably. So at prices averaging mid $30s and up, is it worth it? Well, in a word, yes. With the falling dollar and burgundies becoming all but unaffordable, and California pinots falling rapidly to the Cult of Sideways, Oregon still offers some nice buys and memorable drinking experiences.
In future columns, the question of whether value can be found among Oregon pinots will be addressed.
