Pinot Noir have, for the last two thousand years,grapes have been grown and fermented throughout Europe. Since the last two hundred years, the grape has been grown throughout the World, but none of equaled those grown on the Burgundian slopes known as the Côte-d’Or, the “Slope of Gold,” that is until1966.
History of Pinot Noir in Oregon
The History of Pinot Noir, as told in Brian Doyle’s book The Grail, a newly college-graduate farmer from Utah, named David Lett, swung through Napa Valley on the way to dentistry school. He never became a dentist. Instead he moved to Northern Oregon, in the Dundee Hills, and planted the first Pinot Noir grapes in Oregon. Since then, Oregon Pinot Noir grapes have been planted in over 4000 acres as reported by Lisa Shara Hall in her article “The Continued Strength of Alsatian Varietals in Oregon” published September 2001 in Wine Business Monthly.
Pinot Noir wine is a rich, intensely flavored red wine, which has a strong floral nose and a high tannin quality, that is difficult to grow due to its difficulty to grow, to ferment, and vinify, but for those who follow this varietal, there is nothing better. Pinot Noir grapes are prone to every grape disease, fungus, or rot imaginable. Coupled with its distain for most climates and soil, Pinot Noir is none throughout the world as one of the best, and worse, wines ever created.
Oregon Pinot Noir Today
Pinot Noir is grown or produced in almost every vineyard or winery in Oregon. These wineries produces many differetn versions of Pinot Noir due to the fact that Pinot Noir grows best in climates that are fog-prone and continuously cool throughout the growing season without being frost prone. Almost all of Oregon is fog-prone and continuously cool throughout the year. However, those vineyards from the Dundee Hills have continuingly produce outstanding, award-winning wines. Due to the redclay-loam soil combinations found in Northern Oregon, coupled with a perfect microclimate the resembles that of Burgundy, the Pinot Noir wines produced in this region are, arguably, one of the best areas in the world to find outstanding, and relatively inexpensive, Pinot Noir wine.
Pinot Noir wines is not for everyone. This strong varietal can frighten those who do not drink wine often. But for the daring, this wine should be drunk and often. For those who live in Oregon or Washington, coming to these great, and beautiful, vineyards should be high on the list of every wine vacation. For those who do not live within the Pacific Northwest, or prefer “stay-cations,” the taste of Oregon Pinot Noirs cab purchased on many online stores.
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