The Price of Oregon Pinot Noir
When I teach classes, the comment that consistently comes up in group discussion is “why is it so hard to find an Oregon Pinot Noir at less than 30 dollars?”. I try to answer the question, but never seem to do it justice in the less than 20 seconds the class gives me before they want to move onto the next topic. So, here it goes.
#1-Yield and Tonnage. Try to imagine that winemaker A is making wine with fruit that yielded about 5 to 8 tons per acre. Winemaker B is making wine with fruit that yielded about 1 to 2 tons per acre. Which winemaker paid more for the fruit? You guessed it, winemaker B, who also happens to be making Oregon pinot noir.
#2-Harvesting. The thin skin of pinot noir fruit, not to mention the subseptibility to mold and grey rot, makes this a fruit that almost always has to be hand picked. Imagine rows of vineyard workers, picking usually at night to preserve natural acidity, and placing the fruit into small baskets, where the fruit clusters then have to be hand sorted to remove rotten and moldy bunches from the good bunches. Very labor intensive, which of course, adds to the cost of the wine.
#3-Acreage. More and more, Oregon wine is being defined by vineyards, as opposed to appellations. This is a great thing, as this just puts us one step closer to emulating the great Grand Crus of Burgundy, where Clos de Beze means so much more than Gevrey-Chambertin. And like Clos de Beze (at only 38 acres), the great vineyards of the Willamette Valley Dundee Hills are generally 30 acres or less, which means that their fruit commands a higher price. It’s fun to do the math: take Anderson Family Vineyard as an example, lovingly tended by Cliff and Allison Anderson. 20 acres, at a yield of about 1.5 tons an acre. Total of 30 tons of fruit. Each ton yields about 120 gallons of juice, for a total of 3600 gallons. Converted to litres, roughly 21,000 bottles, or 1800 cases. Now the kicker; Anderson Vineyard fruit/juice finds a home each year in Lemelson, JK Carriere, Bergstrom, Boedecker, GC Cellars, and August Cellars, as well as Anderson’s own label. That’s a small pie to divide, indeed. The good news? Next time you see any of these labels with Anderson Vineyard on it, you will have a better understanding of why this “grand cru” vineyard is worth any penny the winemaker charges.
Please note that I’m not suggesting that every spendy bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir is good, because that is not true. Any savvy wine drinker knows better than to drink by price. However, when emulating the Old World, we can’t ignore that the more prestigious vineyard sites easily command higher prices. It is up to the consumer to educate themselves as to who is farming these superior sites, and to subsequently, buy as much of their finished product as they can comfortably afford. Uncorking Oregon is here to help! I hope you enjoyed this blog entry, and would love to hear your comments if you have time.
