Monday, Jun. 08, 2009

Oregon's Spanish influence

By Ken Robertson, Wine Press Northwest

While wine touring recently in Southern Oregon, I encountered wines made from the Tempranillo grape for the first time and was told it originated in Spain. How did it end up in the Northwest?

Tempranillo is generally recognized as the best of the wines of Spain's Rioja region, where it's the premier grape. Usually it's blended into the famous Rioja wines, but it also is often bottled as a single variety.

One clue to its dominance: Of Rioja's nearly 43,000 hectares of red wine grapes, more than 31,000 are planted in Tempranillo, according to The Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia.

So, how and why did Tempranillo come to Oregon? Much of the credit goes to Earl Jones of Abacela Vineyards & Winery near Roseburg, Ore. His enthusiasm for Tempranillo led him to uproot his family from Florida and move west to Oregon's Umpqua Valley because he felt the climate was ideal for the grapes of Spain. His first commercial bottling of Tempranillo was in 1997, and his 1998 version won a double gold at the 2000 San Francisco International Wine Competition, besting all the Spanish and California entries.

"The essence of it is that the world has long misunderstood the climate of Spain," Jones said. "They don't grow grapes in the desert area."

Instead, the Spanish grow their best wine grapes in the Rioja and the Ribera del Duero.

Those two areas, Jones notes, are much like Southern Oregon in climate. The Tempranillo grape also is grown in the hotter areas of Spain, he said, but the heat means the growers tend to produce huge yields of 10 to 14 tons per acre from it, which "makes great bulk wine."

Before Jones picked the site for his winery and adjacent vineyards, he had traveled extensively in Spain in the 1980s. He discovered the area where the best Tempranillo is grown in the Rioja has a climate "that's a dead ringer" for Walla Walla, Wash., and Medford, Ore.

When he returned to the United States, he went exploring throughout the Northwest, traveling to Idaho, the Walla Walla Valley, the Yakima Valley near Prosser, Wash., and due south of that area across the Columbia River in Oregon.

Finally, he bought his land near Roseburg in 1992. His vines went into the ground in 1995 and two years later he had his first vintage.

Since his first big winner from the 1998 vintage was crushed, Tempranillo has built a small but growing and dedicated following, with well over 1,000 acres now grown in the United States, Jones said.

His site sits in the southern end of a north-south valley that's ideal for Pinot Noir in the north where about 60 inches of rain may fall a year and where the heat units total about 2,000 each growing season.

Near Abacela, the rain dwindles to about 24 inches and the heat units rise to almost 3,000, which means Abacela's vineyards require another 6 to 8 inches of irrigation. Winter temperatures rarely fall below 20 degree Fahrenheit.

As the three-time president of the national Tempranillo organization, he easily can cite the plantings off the top of his head - about 700-800 acres in California, maybe a bit less than 200 in Oregon, 50 in Washington, 50 or less in Idaho, "and a little in Arizona near Tombstone."

Those statistics and sites tell the story of a wine grape that's not yet reached its potential in the Northwest or the United States.

In the hands of Abacela winemaker Andrew Wenzl and Jones, who can be found aboard his tractor preparing new land on the sloping site of his vineyard in the spring, Abacela's Southern Oregon Tempranillo turns into a complex, full-bodied red with plum and blackberry flavors, solid tannins and plenty of aging potential.

For his dedication to producing fine wines from Spanish-climate grapes, Jones recently was named the 2009 Oregon Vintner of the Year. He proudly claims his winery was Oregon's first producer of wines made from 100 percent Oregon-grown Tempranillo - not to mention Albariño and Garnacha (Grenache).

Tempranillo is catching on with other winemakers and grape growers in the Northwest as the amount of grapes increases.

About a dozen Oregon wineries make Tempranillo from grapes grown in Southern Oregon and a few examples have come out of the Walla Walla Valley and other areas in Washington as well.

Jones said longtime Washington winemaker Brian Carter of Brian Carter Cellars - who has made a red blend called Corrida that's 65 percent Tempranillo - and Tedd Wildman, of Stonetree Vineyard on Washington's Wahluke Slope, both are experimenting with Tempranillo.

Wine Words: Rosado

We've been focused mostly on a Spanish wine grape, so why not a little lesson in Spanish as well? Rosado, which you'll find on several Northwest wine labels nowadays, is the Spanish word for rosé wine.

No doubt we'll soon see "tinto" (red) and "tintillo" (a light red that's darker than dark rosé), also known in Spain as "clarete."

Ken Robertson, a newspaperman for 39 years and a Wine Press Northwest columnist since its founding, has enjoyed sipping and writing about Northwest wines for 32 years. He lives in Kennewick, Wash. Have a question for Ken? E-mail krobertson@winepressnw.com.

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