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--> --> Oregon getting international reputation for quality wines By JOHN ENDERS Associated Press writer DUNDEE - When Jim and Susan Sokol Blosser arrived here 30 years ago to plant a small vineyard, Dundee was barely more than a wide spot in a road running past turkey and hazelnut farms in the Willamette Valley. The town had a truck stop and a diner, but little more than that - not even a stoplight. Today, Dundee and the fertile red clay hills that surround it are the epicenter of a growing wine industry whose vintages are getting recognition around the world. "People don't ask me anymore whether Oregon is a county in Northern California," says Kevin Chambers, who owns a 17-acre vineyard about 10 miles west of Dundee. "We're accepted as a world-class growing region, wherever you go," said Chambers. It's boom time for Oregon's wine industry - largely because wine lovers everywhere are discovering the state's pinot noir. Last year, the state's wine industry produced $200 million in sales and, this year, promises for the first time to top a million cases of wine. There are 174 wineries in the state, up from 70 in 1990. About 10,500 acres of vineyards are planted in Oregon, double the number in 1990. About 20 new wineries - mainly small, family-run operations - open in Oregon each year, according to the state-supported, industry-funded Oregon Wine Advisory Board. "The growth has been tremendous in the last several years," says Lisa Shara Hall, senior editor of Wine Business Monthly. Vintners in the United States and abroad are taking notice. Last year, Willamette Valley vintners launched an annual "Pinot Noir Camp," where they exchange tips and technology. Producers from France's Burgundy region, California's Napa and Sonoma valleys and New Zealand have come to the camp to learn more about Oregon wines. The Willamette Valley's fertile soil is what drew settlers to follow the Oregon Trail back in the mid-1800s. These days, the valley is attracting a different kind of pioneer - investors who see the possibility of making money by growing wine. In 1987, Robert Drouhin of Burgundy moved into Dundee and now produces Domaine Drouhin pinots and other varietals. He sold a controlling interest in his wineries to the $6 billion Japanese conglomerate Snow Bank Milk Products Co. Ltd. of Tokyo. Argyle Winery is owned by Petaluma of Australia and was recently called "Oregon's premier winery" by Wine Spectator magazine. The Archery Summit winery is part of Pine Ridge Winery of Napa. Leucadia National Corp., a New York-based investment firm, is a major investor in the winery. Outside investments have brought world-class expertise and grape-growing knowledge, says Jim Bernau, president of the publicly trade Willamette Valley Vineyard. The quality of Oregon wines has improved - as has the standard of culinary offerings in the Willamette Valley. Dundee is home to several gourmet restaurants, including Tina's, where a bottle of Domaine Drouhin Oregon Laurene pinot noir fetches $200 a bottle and $25 to $30 for entrees such as grilled skeena river chinook and goat cheese souffles - a far cry from the two-buck breakfasts on the menu at John's Restaurant just a few years ago. Streams of tourists - not just Americans but also Europeans and Asians - enter the valley on weekends for tours and wine-tasting at wineries like Erath, Sokol Blosser, Argyle, Duck Pond and Archery Summit. They can take helicopter tours of the wineries, stay at $150-a-night bed and breakfasts, and go on hot-air balloon rides. About 25,000 vehicles a day pass through Dundee on two-lane Oregon Highway 99W, which splits the town in half. That figure is expected to double by 2020. Land in the three-by-six mile Dundee Hills, which sold for $500 an acre in the late 1960s, now costs $14,000 per acre. The growth has been explosive, but locals like the money all the visitors are bringing in. Most of the wine operations are family operated and small - averaging about 20 acres. Some have entered their second generation, with sons and daughters involved directly in the growing, processing or marketing sides, said Mary Davis of the Oregon Wine Advisory Board. The size of Oregon's wine industry pales next to California's, where 166,000 acres are planted in wine grapes in six leading wine counties, nearly 50,000 acres in Sonoma County alone. Still, Oregon wines are getting respect. Romy Dorotan, who runs the wine cellar at Manhattan's chic Southeast Asian Cendrillon restaurant, says he prefers Oregon's pinots to California's. He says the Oregon wines are "world class." Bernard Sun, head sommelier at Montrachet Restaurant, also in New York, says Oregon pinots are not up to the standards of the finest Bungundies, but that's understandable. "Pinot noir lovers need not fret. Oregon's wine industry is a relatively young one. The Burgundians do have a couple of hundred years' head start," he says. "Judging from what I've seen the last couple of years, Oregon wine producers are definitely off to a great start." Because of the low gross tonnages and finicky climate, Oregon's winemakers focus on quality, not quantity. "We will never be a region that produces inexpensive wines," said Chambers. "We don't get the tonnages in our vineyards. What we can do here is produce an extremely high quality grape that by its nature produces an expensive wine." Most vines in Oregon are hand-pruned, harvests hand-picked and the grapes producing pinot noirs and pinot gris are thin-skinned. That makes them difficult to handle on a large scale with machinery, and thus unlikely to be of interest to large-scale growers like those in eastern Washington or California, says Bernau. Quality over quantity means high prices. An Archery Summit Estate 1998 pinot noir, for example, runs $100 a bottle; only 125 cases were made. In a recent Wine Spectator testing session, eight top-scoring pinots were $60 a bottle or more. The economic impact on the state is becoming more and more significant. Wine production jumped from 41st to 17th most important agricultural crop in the past decade, state agriculture officials said. Climate, soils and location all favor the Dundee Hills. Located on the 45th Parallel, half way between the equator and the North Pole, the region has deep red clay soils that drain well, and a climate characterized by wet but mild winters, and hot and dry summers with cool breezes that blow in off the Pacific Ocean and cool the ground. Wine grapes are not new to the region. Legend has it that European grape varieties came to the Oregon Territory with the Hudson's Bay Company. In the 1850s, pioneers on the Oregon Trail brought vine plantings with them. By 1970, there were just five bonded wineries in the state and 35 acres of vineyards. The business remained a cottage industry until the 1970s and early 1980s, when wine production - especially pinot noir - began to grow rapidly. "What fueled the continued interest in Oregon wines is the increased knowledge and interest of the wine consumer," said David Perry, director of education and training for Charmer-Sunbelt Group, the nation's second-largest wine and spirits wholesaler, based in Queens, N.Y. Oregon pinot noir is "sought after. There just isn't enough of it," Perry said. Email your... 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