Bourgogne in the USA

Oregon's Pinot Noirs

It’s a truism known by every sommelier that Pinot Noir is the thoroughbred of the grape world: finicky, demanding and temperamental, with exacting requirements for both terroir and winemaking. For no other grape variety are greenness and jamminess so close together on the climatic scale; no other grape so capable of irresistible beauty when in the right place.

The best sites in Burgundy are well charted, and it is still in the region’s premier and grand cru vineyards that Pinot, arguably, finds its greatest expression. But for grape growers in the New World the vast amount of time and money spent in finding suitable sites for producing top-quality Pinot are finally starting to pay off, with places like Central Otago, the Leyda Valley and the Yarra Valley acquiring loyal devotees.

Most of the US Pinot Noir we see in the UK comes from California’s Russian River Valley and Carneros AVA. But consensus seems to be growing that the Pinot Noirs of Oregon’s Willamette Valley are, potentially, some of the most exciting interpretations of the grape to come out of the whole of the New World.

‘The Oregon wines are nice and elegant,’ says Eric Zwiebel, cellar master at Dorset’s Summer Lodge. ‘They tend to be less over-ripe than other New World Pinots, with a little more finesse, and their texture is midway between Burgundy and the rest of the New World.’

‘Oregon Pinot Noir comes halfway between Burgundy and other New World Pinots for me,’ agrees Mark van der Goot, owner of The Rosendale and The Wheatsheaf gastropubs. ‘They tend to have a bit more complexity than other New World takes on the grape.’

Troy Sutton at the Michelin-starred Nahm is equally enthusiastic, speculating that the reason for the finesse of the wines is that ‘they come from a region that’s on the fringe of viability. It’s almost too wet, almost too cool, and as a result, some years the wines can be not all that great, but when they’re good they can be fantastic.’

That cool, damp climate in the Willamette Valley not only helps the grapes walk the tightrope of viability that leads to finesse; it also creates a landscape of lush and fertile beauty. Gently undulating hills are green with plants, manicured vineyard strips interspersed with clumps of Douglas firs and Oregon oaks, fields of red clover grasses, coppices of hazelnut trees and espaliered hops, and gambrel-roofed barns nestle snugly in the folds between the hills.

‘Oregon Pinot Noir is

a hand sell, but it’s an

easy hand sell,’ Laura Rhys

Although relatively few of us in the wine trade make the trek out to enjoy Oregon’s charms at first hand, a growing number of sommeliers and restaurant owners have succumbed to the delights of the state’s wines. In 2005, only eight producers had distribution in the UK; today, more than 30 Oregon producers’ wines are available over here. But despite this steep growth – albeit growth from a very small base – the perception still remains that Oregon wine does not sell well in the UK.

Part of the reason is that, in purely pragmatic terms, there’s little reason for many Oregonian producers to put themselves through the mill of competing in the UK market. ‘For small wineries [and most Oregon wineries are on the boutique side] it’s difficult to make the commitment to support a presence in the UK market when the amount they’re going to get for the small volumes they can sell here may not reimburse them for all the effort they need to put into being here,’ points out James Doidge, managing director of The Wine Treasury.

Whether they come from large or small wineries, there’s no doubt that the UK market has challenged Oregon’s producers. ‘The UK is a difficult market for us,’ admits Josh Bergström of Bergström Wines. ‘Part of the problem is that the UK is very Francocentric when it comes to Pinot. What we need to do is to get over people’s expectations of prestige wines. We’re not in it to topple Burgundian sales – far from it, we’re big fans of the wines – but we think we deserve a place too.’

Another issue, Bergström admits, is that by the time most Oregon producers have paid shipping costs, import duties and the various other fees associated with getting their wines into the UK market, ‘…they cost as much as a Burgundy Premier Cru’.

Sokol Blosser’s Alex Sokol Blosser is slightly more sanguine about Oregon’s pricing level. ‘I think we’re fairly competitive with Burgundy on a price to quality basis,’ he says. ‘In terms of the UK we’re competing with New Zealand rather than Burgundy.’

HIGH LISTERS

Whether Oregonians see their competition as coming from Burgundy, New Zealand or elsewhere, though, the truth remains that selling Oregon Pinot can be a tough proposition in a demanding market.

‘Burgundy is still a hard sell, but it’s far easier for a sommelier to sell a bottle of Burgundy at £70 than it is for them to sell a bottle of Oregon Pinot – or even a New Zealand Pinot, for that matter,’ points out Liberty Wines’ director of London on-trade sales Tim Tweedy.

And although Zwiebel believes that: ‘On-trade specialists who sell Californian wine here shouldn’t have any problem selling Oregon wine as well’, Bibendum buyer Tim Marson MW believes that the logistics of producing wine in the two states are different enough to create a fundamental gap in cost.

‘The concept of value for money is a key factor in determining what sells, and the cost of farming in Oregon is higher than it is in California,’ he explains. ‘There’s no economy of scale: vines tend to be grown on the uplands in Willamette whereas Californian tend to be coastal – and that’s why you can find inexpensive Californian Pinot while Oregon Pinot under £10 doesn’t exist. Once you’re over the £35 mark on a list, a wine simply doesn’t attract the same attention as those under £30 do – which is why even relatively large wineries can’t compete.’

Nevertheless, a growing number of sommeliers feel that listing Oregon Pinot can repay the effort involved in their sale, even if prices tend to be high.

‘Oregon Pinot Noir is a hand sell, but it’s an easy hand sell,’ says Hotel TerraVina’s Laura Rhys. ‘At the moment Pinot Noir is incredibly popular generally, so I’ll start by explaining that these wines are Burgundian in style, but with a definite New World twist.’

Even restaurants without a sommelier can manage to make Oregon Pinot work. Neither Arbutus nor Wild Honey have professional wine staff on the floor at every meal, but co-owner Will Smith says that the key is to ensure that staff know enough about the wine to be able to recommend it with both knowledge and enthusiasm.

In addition, the fact that both restaurants list wines by the carafe permits Smith to take some risks with his list – and this gives him some elbow room to list pricier propositions like Oregon Pinot.

‘I tend to say to people, “Let me get you a carafe. If you don’t like it, we’ll find you something else”,’ he explains. ‘The bottle’s open anyway, so we can always sell the carafe to someone else, but we find that if customers try it, they generally like it.’

Smith admits that, at the price point he listed the Willamette Valley Vineyards Pinot, customers can tend to default to Burgundy, but he felt that it was worth putting the wine on his list for the sake of adding ‘a bit of interest’ to it. ‘It’s one of those wines that can get a bit lost on a list,’ he explains, ‘so you have to push it a bit, but I think it’s worth it.’

‘We’re not trying to topple

Burgundian sales – we’re big fans

of the wines – but we think we

deserve a place too.’ Josh Bergstrom

But it may well be that cost is not the only hurdle. Hakkasan’s Christine Parkinson believes there are other issues at stake. ‘I don’t think the lack of Oregon wines in the UK is price driven,’ she says, ‘When you’re looking for a wine it’s always easier to find something when you already have a strong relationship with the country – and we don’t have that yet with Oregon. I think one reason New Zealand Pinot is so strong in the UK is because the UK wine trade has such a good knowledge of New Zealand’s producers and wine regions.’

Marson agrees, adding that the awareness of New Zealand’s wines applies to consumers as well. ‘Most people don’t even have a concept of Oregon, whereas there’s a lot of Kiwis here, so there’s a very strong concept of where New Zealand is and what it does. People don’t have anything to latch on to with Oregon and the problem is made worse by the fact that there’s no entry-level brand below £10. People can’t trade up because there’s nothing to trade up from.’

TOP LEVEL ENTRY

Marson’s analysis of the situation is in line with what David Adelsheim, one of the Willamette Valley’s pioneering producers, has to say on the subject. ‘The problem in the UK is that every other New World country that has made its way in the UK has had an entry-level wine. Unless we’re going to treat the UK market as specially privileged, in that we sell our wines there below cost, the only other option is to figure out how to decrease everyone’s margin – including our own,’ he says.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, you have to wonder why any of Oregon’s producers (most of whom could sell their annual production several times over in the States alone) would bother struggling upstream in the UK market. According to Adelsheim, however, the answer is simple.

‘Why should we do it?’ he asks. ‘There is certainly no monetary reason to try and make a go of it in the UK, but there is a prestige reason. No one individual brand should have to do it, but the state of Oregon has to be seen to be present in the UK market simply because it’s one of the two most important wine markets in the world. We need to be there for the honour and the glory of it.’

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