US: Tracing the fruition of Oregon's wine industry
US: Tracing the fruition of Oregon's wine industry
May 7, 2012 6
(OregonLive) - In the beginning, the late 1960s and early 1970s, they were bearded young men and overall-wearing women. They were college graduates who had majored in engineering, philosophy, political science or the liberal arts. But they found their life’s work in the hills and farmlands of the Willamette Valley.
The new “Oregon Experience” documentary, “Oregon Wine: Grapes of Place,” tells the story of how the state’s pioneering winemakers were driven to produce wines when there was not yet a market for them. They shared a vision, which was to produce wines in the noblest European tradition, but bearing the specific traits of the Willamette Valley regions where the grapes were grown.
This marriage of old and new worlds was revolutionary. In time, the efforts of the early visionaries and risk-takers made Oregon synonymous with world-class pinot noir, the hard-to-grow grape for which the northern Willamette Valley climate turned out to be ideal.
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