Hey, Willamette Valley, prepare to make room on your Pinot Noir stage for Southern Oregon. They are ready for their close-up.
The Southern Oregon American Viticultural Area (AVA) encompasses Applegate Valley, Elkton Oregon, Red Hill Douglas County, Rogue Valley and Umpqua Valley. The AVA’s two million total acres stretch from south of Eugene to within wine-spitting distance of the California border.
Those who picture the Southern Oregon AVA as a warm-climate region filled with fly fishing, Tempranillo and Syrah would be surprised to discover that Pinot Noir is the region’s most widely planted grape, accounting for over 40% of the planted acreage, according to the 2022 Oregon Vineyard and Winery Report.
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While there are unproven claims that frontier photographer Peter Britt planted Pinot Noir in the Rogue Valley in the late 1880s, the grape’s provable Southern Oregon history begins in the Umpqua Valley. That’s where Richard Sommer founded HillCrest Vineyard more than 60 years ago. In 1959, just a few years after graduating with an agronomy degree from the University of California, Davis, Sommer transported Pinot Noir cuttings from Louis M. Martini’s Stanly Ranch property in Napa to Roseburg, Oregon. Dyson DeMara, who along with his wife, Susan, acquired HillCrest Vineyard from Sommer in 2003, reports that after a year of “rooting out” at a nearby location, Sommer planted his Pinot Noir vines, along with other varieties, at the HillCrest Vineyard site in
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
