Oregon Becomes Champagne Country

Filed in archive Northwestern US Wines on January 5, 2007

We had some wonderful champagne at our small party at home for New Year's eve. I'd forgotten how much I love the bubbly. Nothing makes you feel more festive than a glass of champagne.

Oregon is learning this as well as are wineries that their futures may be shifting from Pinto Noir to sparkling wines. Here's more on the news of this merging from Sparkling Wines Finding Favor: Wineries see Oregon as perfect place to produce champagne:

From the infancy of Oregon's wine industry, the elevation and soil composition of Willamette Valley vineyards have been known to be ideal for growing pinot noir and chardonnay grapes. In the past few decades, those two varieties have put Oregon on the viticultural map.

So it shouldn't come as much of a head-scratcher that several local wineries have begun dabbling in the production of champagne and other sparkling wines. Pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, after all, are two of the three varieties used in champagne.

"That's our passion, and why we started the winery and what we do best," says Buzz Kawders, managing partner of Domaine Meriwether, a specialty winery with roots in both Eugene and Carlton, northwest of Salem.

"The reason Meriwether settled in the Willamette Valley was (that) the idea was to produce Old-World, classic champagne," Kawders says. "The search was made literally around the world. Ultimately, it was decided the best region to produce what we wanted to produce was the Willamette Valley.

"There's no better place to grow pinot noir than the Willamette Valley."