Willamette Valley Vineyards founder Jim Bernau, left, wife Jen Bernau and Jim Gullo of Oregon Wine Press pack a minivan before driving to southern Oregon. Vineyards in the Rogue Valley are scrambling to offload tons of grapes that were cancelled at the last minute by Napa Valley winery Copper Cane. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)
Update, 3:45 p.m.: Copper Cane LLC responded Thursday afternoon with a statement, posted at the end of this article.
One of Oregon’s newest wines will be a blend of frustration, urgency and quick-thinking.
Early pitches call it the “Solidarity Vintage.”
It’s a pinot noir to be made from thousands of pounds of Oregon grape varieties stranded on the vine after a California winery dropped its buy orders.
The last-minute cancellation put at least a dozen Rogue Valley vineyards in a spiral, but rescuers headed out from Salem, Eugene and other areas to help. Volunteers from Willamette Valley wineries will be on hand Thursday morning to pick and ship grapes that otherwise had nowhere to go.
“It’s kind of a scramble,” said Ed King, owner of King Estate Winery, based in Eugene. “They are too far ahead to let the fruit rot and drop and die out there. It’s no question to make it into wine.”
Millions of dollars worth of grapes were, until late September, destined for the facilities of Copper Cane LLC. According to vineyards impacted, the Rutherford, Calif.-based winery let them know Sept. 21 it was cancelling orders over fears wildfire smoke tarnished the crop.
“By the time they told there was a concern, we were already picking the pinot noir,” said Michael Moore, owner of Quail Run Vineyards in Talent, south of Medford.
Many vineyards’ livelihoods are now at stake. Quail Run, at 420 acres, is large enough to take the hit. Moore said many others relied on Copper Cane to buy all of their grapes.
Herb Quady, a vineyard owner in Selma who helps supply labor to impacted, said he has never seen anything like this in more than two decades.
“Cancellations don’t happen very often and wholesale cancellations never happen,” he said, although he has heard it happen sometimes to vineyards in California.
It’s unclear how many southern Oregon vineyards are hurting, Moore said. Contracts “make it scary for people to talk,” or even disclose how many tons they lost, he said. Some expect to swallow the loss and have a crop ready for the next harvest.
“All I can say is it’s a massive hit,” Moore said.
Those vineyards are also now bruised by the claim their grapes were tainted by smoke from wildfires that raged throughout Oregon in July and August. It’s a claim that Moore denies. He said third-party tests for guaiacol and methylguaiacol — compounds of smoke that seep into grape skins — came back clear.
“There is no evidence,” he said. “We’ve had our grapes tested. We’ve had our grapes made into wine,” Moore said. “We’ve talked with the best winemakers in the state who are using our fruit and asking them if they taste any smoke or get any fragrance. Nobody has said anything. Zero. That’s 38 wineries.”
“The only winery that rejected our wine is Copper Cane. They told us our wine tasted like tar and ash,” he added.
Copper Cane didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
Oregon wineries, however, are embracing the wine, although it has taken many last-minute arrangements. With harvest season in full swing, King said fermenting tanks around the state are already full.
“At King Estate, we’re full up, our tanks, we’re all committed, and we have a fairly large facility,” he said. “It’s a little bit of an emergency situation. They’ve got to find a home for these grapes.”
Workers at Willamette Valley Vineyards transport barrels of wine at the Turner facility in September. (Troy Brynelson/Salem Reporter)
One home will be Willamette Valley Vineyards. Owner Jim Bernau said the winery expects to help pay for picking and shipping to bring close to 13 tons of grapes. The vineyard will also help pay for about 80 tons to be shipped to a winery near Roseburg.
“We’ve been through this issue before, in 2002, when there was a 500,000-acre fire, the Biscuit Fire, the biggest wildfire in Oregon history. We harvested from the vineyards and it made really nice wine,” he said.
Bernau said they will likely pay $2,400 per ton of pinot noir and $2,100 per ton of merlot; and will pay tens of thousands more to ship grapes to other wineries. But he hopes to make that back when the wine is made.
“We’re trying to send a message that this is a great vintage,” he said. “The fruit’s great. And we’re going to make great wine.”
On Wednesday, Bernau climbed into a minivan with his wife, some winery employees, and state Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, to help pick grapes Thursday. Gomberg was hopeful.
“The fire season has had a horrible impact on everything from tourism to agriculture,” he said. “The consensus is, though, that it’s not having an impact on the wine grape, despite a California winery using that as a basis to cancel its contracts.”
Gomberg and Bernau have been watching Copper Cane closely in recent weeks. The two led calls for an investigation into the winery after two of its brands of wine allegedly co-opted several Oregon regions’ reputations for pinot noir.
Those calls, which led to state and federal regulators to open investigations, came about a month before Copper Cane pulled its grape orders.
“What a coincidence,” Gomberg said.
Whether southern Oregon vineyards will recoup some of their losses is uncertain. The wine could be sold to a wholesaler or wind up right on store shelves, according to King.
“As an industry we have a tendency to stand together when the chips are down,” he said. “We are ferocious competitors but at the same time we realize our true abilities to work together for what’s best in the industry, including these growers who found themselves without a place for their grapes.”
Moore was thankful for the help, but remained unsure.
“Things are up in the air,” he said. “You start the year with loans and you work all year to get to this point and if you don’t sell your fruit, those loans get called in. And if you don’t have the money from the sale, you’re in deep trouble.”
Copper Cane’s statement:
“Due to the wild fires in Southern Oregon and Northern California in the summer and fall of 2018, we conducted analysis that determined high levels of volatile and non-volatile phenolic compounds in g rapes that cause smoke taint. According to research conducted by Enartis-Vinquiry and the Australian Wine Research Institute, the most effective time to conduct the testing is as close as possible (to) the harvest date as possible.
We pulled samples from our growers in Rogue Valley, crushed the grapes, pressed and fermented the juice. Through sensory analysis and laboratory analysis it was determined smoke taint was present at a high level. The absence of these grapes in our supply chain will have a negative impact on our finished goods inventory. Hence, we are seeking other fruit sources from Oregon to help supply fruit for our existing brands and the trajectory of our growth.
We uphold high standards for our wine and, equally, the Oregon wine industry has rightfully earned a reputation for quality and excellence. We would not recklessly damage our reputation, erode the image of our brands or that of Oregon’s wine growers and vintners by producing a product that does not meet those high standards. It is with regret that we can’t utilize the wine grapes for this reason from our grower partners, however we hope to continue those relationships in the future.”
Have a tip? Contact reporter Troy Brynelson at 503-357-3207, [email protected] or @TroyWB.
