Oregon Wine Country: A Haven for Intrepid Palates and Adventurous Souls
May in Oregon wine country brings bright wines and verdant vineyard rows. Tasting rooms from southern Oregon up through the Willamette Valley and east to The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater welcome guests with new wine releases and the enchanting surroundings that created them. This special stretch of time, otherwise known as Oregon Wine Month, unfolds before a backdrop of swirling red-tailed hawks, bustling farmer’s markets, towering evergreens, and fragrant fresh air.
Consider Oregon Wine Month an invitation for the adventurous. Dive into the tasting scene firsthand or travel by way of the teleporting power of purchasing Oregon wine from afar. Oregon wine is as layered as the people and places behind it, spanning the entire spectrum from lively sparkling wines and luminous Rieslings to bold Tempranillos. Pinot Noir still plays a leading role in the red category, but thanks to several generations of adventurous producers, the Oregon wine stage is home to more than 70 varieties. This colorful collage of wines is humbly poured by family labels eager to start your exploration of the terrain.
Choose Oregon wine and enter a world of adventure.
The Culture
It’s not uncommon for Oregon winemakers to refer to their roles as fortunate. Between the morning vineyard walks, the coastal range sunsets, and the local Jory soil (which only exists in Oregon), there’s a magic in the surroundings that can be felt with that first whiff of a freshly filled barrel. It’s a tight-knit community that brings fresh energy, ideas, and excellence to American wine, complete with high ratings and critical acclaim.
The many small producers spanning the state’s 23 AVAs create the sum of the scene’s parts with intimate tasting rooms, opportunities to speak with winemakers, and impromptu barrel tastings. Vintners produce wines with inventive flair, fastened to a collective pursuit of quality but not afraid to try a new clone or to co-ferment several varieties. At harvest, you’ll find them fermenting with native yeast, blending lesser-known grapes like Savagnin and Zweigelt, or barreling down in a lesser-known wood grain, like acacia or even local white oak. With so much comradery, collective creativity, and access to unique grapes and sites, Oregon is where intrepid winemakers thrive.
Oregon Wine Month is a chance to celebrate this unique winemaking culture. It’s raising a glass to the winemaker who gambles on a grape that’s never before been grown in the state or to the cheesemaker who wraps their latest batch of blue in leaves from Syrah vines. It’s a nod to the vast majority of area producers, operating on a scale that allows them to be inventive and offer truly intimate tastings. Oregon makes just under 2 percent of the nation’s wine, but is home to scores of small producers, the majority family-run and making 5,000 cases or less per year. It’s a commitment to purity in the bottle thanks to some of the tightest labeling rules in the land and the one-of-a-kind hospitality that’s casual, informed, and welcoming all at once. It’s a landscape unlike any other, with appellations covering terrain from coastal foothills to windswept gorges to high deserts. From urban Portland wineries and the tasting rooms with views of seven different mountain peaks to vineyards that host Oregon white truffle hunts, it’s a winemaking collective that deserves recognition.
The Regions
The Willamette Valley runs more than 100 miles from Portland to Eugene. The former is Oregon’s largest city and home to both a vibrant urban winemaking community and a captivating dining circuit. The latter is where promising new AVAs like Lower Long Tom are extending their roots into resident Bellpine soils, forged by ancient marine beds. In between, you’ll find nine more diverse appellations that reflect the varied microclimates and distinctive soils through expressive wines like Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. There’s the signature red fruit and spice afforded by the brick-red volcanic soils of the Dundee Hills and the concentrated flavors so often tied to the Eola-Amity Hills, where a break in the Coast Range welcomes in cool marine winds that thicken the skins of grapes.
To the east is the Columbia River Gorge. Here, the setting is truly like a storybook, a patchwork of waterfalls, old growth forests, and orchards all overseen by majestic Mt. Hood. Farming has long been a way of life here and many fruit farms have transitioned into viticulture. The terrain ranges from temperate to desert as you head east from wine-centric towns like Hood River and The Dalles, making for a climate that promotes everything from Pinot Noir to Barbera.
Farther east is the Walla Walla Valley, home to the aptly named The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. The dramatic cobble reminds of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where there is a focus on Syrah, Merlot, Viognier, Piquepoul. Down south, a pair of rugged valleys are inhabited by old vines amid charming small towns like Ashland, Jacksonville, and Roseburg. The high-elevation Rogue Valley touts a serious diurnal shift, nurturing famed Burgundian, Rhône, and Italian varieties. Meanwhile, the Umpqua Valley is home to the state’s oldest Pinot Noir vines, along with outstanding Tempranillo that grows in a spectacular intersection of three distinct mountain ranges (Cascades, Coast Range, and Klamath Mountains).
The Wines
Each wine is a singular snapshot of the great Oregon wine frontier. Since the first Pinot Noir plantings in the 1960s, the scene has blossomed to include not only scores of varieties, but countless styles that mirror the many personalities of the community, and no two wines are alike. No two growing seasons are quite the same, allowing winemakers to embrace vintage variation and show a different side to the wines each year. The terroir, accented by varying elevations, microclimates, and soils, produces distinctive aromas and flavors. It’s a perfect combination that reveals the enological power of the place.
Modern Oregon winemaking has produced such diverse styles as skin-fermented Pinot Gris that has the structure of a red wine, and bracing Albariño that begs for a round of local oysters. Or one can taste a Gamay Noir that brings out the best flavors of a salmon dish (and vice versa). Oregon wine is a story told by a plethora of voices from varied vineyard rows. The tale is one of adventure, fearlessness, tantalizing flavors, commitment to craft, and collaboration.
Oregon wine is calling. May is at the heart of the growing season, when a new vintage takes shape. Soak up the invigorating days of spring and summer from a tasting room or vineyard tour while sporting your favorite boots, glass in hand. Or, if you can’t make it in person, bring that taste home by selecting a few Oregon wines to purchase from a retailer, and you can even take it a step further by preparing a meal at home to share with friends and family, inspired by the bounty of the Pacific Northwest.
Whatever the adventure you choose, don’t forget to enter the Oregon Wine Getaway Sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to a few of these storied regions, with prizes that include lodging, experiential tastings, meals, and travel.
Raise a glass to Oregon Wine Month and plan your adventure. Learn more about Oregon’s dynamic wines and diverse appellations at oregonwine.org.
This article is sponsored by Oregon Wine Board.
The article Oregon Wine Country: A Haven for Intrepid Palates and Adventurous Souls appeared first on VinePair.