A History of Grapes and Wine

Oregon 150 Symposium,February 18, 2009

Umpqua Community CollegeRoseburg, Oregon

Chris LakeDirector

The Southern Oregon Wine Instituteat Umpqua Community College

History of US Winemaking

• Putting the Oregon Experience in Context

• Starting with the Original Colonists• Heading West• The Great Experiment• The Current Situation

Wine Producing Regions of USA

Thomas Pinney’s A History of Wine

in America

Pinney’s Eras in the History of US Winemaking

• Three Major Eras– “Getting It Wrong”1607-1807– “Compromise” 1807-1960– “Getting It Right” 1960-Present

Pinney’s Eras in the History of US Winemaking

• Three Major Classes of Grapes– Vitis vinifera L. - the classic winegrape– “natives”- Hybrids of the wild,

American species: V. lubrscana, V. cordifolia, V. aestivalis, ect…

– “French-American Hybrids” – More advanced hybrids between V. vinifera and the wild American species

Heading West

• Horticulture in the Northwest begins at Hudson’s Bay Company, Fort Vancouver on Columbia River

• Grapes raised from seed brought from England in 1824

• Likely these were V. vinfera

Heading West

• Settlement of the Oregon Territory – 1840’s

• Seth Lewelling of Milwaukie, OR planted Isabella (native) 1847

• William Meek of Willamette, OR won award for Isabella white wine in 1859 California State Fair

Heading West

• 1860’s – A.R. Shipley of Oswego imports some vinifera into the Willamette.

• 1869 Oregon State Fair lists prizes for “foreign” and “American” grapes

• 1900 fair lists only “American” varieties

Heading West – Southern Oregon

• 1860’s – Peter Britt establishes the Valley View Vineyards – made wine for local market and some for Portland

• 1880’s – the Van Pessl brothers planted vinifera in the Melrose area

• The Doerner family opened a winery in 1890’s that operated until 1965, in the Melrose area

The Doerner Winery

Adolf Doerner,c. 1940

The Great Experiment

• “Prohibition”– Generally considered

– January 17, 1920 – December 5, 1933

– Volstead Act, 18th Amendment– Repeal, 21st Amendment

• Oregon “Jumped the Gun”– 1914 Votes to Go Dry in Anticipation

of the Volstead Act of 1919

Light at the End of the Tunnel

• 1933 – The first post- Prohibition license is granted to Louis Herbolt

• The Doerner winery resumes production in 1934

• No Significant Activity until 1960• 1960 – Richard Sommer establishes

the Hilcrest Vineyards winery, bonded winery #44, in Melrose area

Richard Sommer, in the Hilcrest Vineyard, Roseburg, OR, c. 1965

Richard Sommer, in the vineyard

The Modern Era

• 1965 – David Lett plants Pinot Noir (V. vinifera) and others in the Willamette

• 1968 – Pinot Noir from Hillcrest becomes available in Oregon

• 1970 – Five bonded wineries and 35 vineyard acres

The Modern Era

• 1979 – David Lett of The Eyrie Vineyards places in the top ten of the Gault-Millau French Wine Olympiades with his 1975 Pinot Noir

• 1987- The Drouhin Family, a respected wine family from France buys 100 acres in the North Willamette

• Oregon Wine is now respected on the World’s Wine Stage

Modern Wine

Producing Regions of

Oregon

The Current Situation

• According to Pinney, the Three Major Eras in US winemaking– “Getting It Wrong”1607-1807– “Compromise” 1807-1960– “Getting It Right” 1960-Present

• Future Growth in the Oregon Wine Industry looks Promising