The history of Oregon wine production stretches back to before the state was incorporated. Settlers to the Oregon Territory planted grapes as early as the 1840s, however the production of wine has only been a significant industry in Oregon since the 1960s. Oregon wines first achieved significant critical notice in the late 1970s; in 2005, the industry sold 1.6 million cases of Oregon vintages with a retail value of US$184.7 million. In 2015, there were 702 wineries and 28,034 acres of vitis vinifera planted.
From settlement to Prohibition
Grapes were first planted in the Oregon Territory in 1847 by Henderson Luelling, a horticulturist who traveled to the territory on the Oregon Trail. The first recorded winery, Valley View Vineyard, was established in Jacksonville (in what is now the Rogue Valley AVA) in the 1850s by Peter Britt, several years before the state was founded in 1859. The earliest large vineyards in the Willamette Valley was probably cultivated by French immigrant Jean Mathiot in Butteville where he settled in 1853. He planted grapes in 1858 and according to the Oregon Statesman Journal had the largest vineyard in the State in 1859. In the first Oregon census in 1860, wine production was listed at 11,800 liters (2,600 gallons), though it is certain that not all of this came from grapes.
In the 1880s, numerous immigrants to Southern Oregon experimented with various varietals, including Zinfandel, Riesling, and an unknown variety of Sauvignon. By 1899, Oregon vineyards yielded 2,694 tons of grapes. Five years later, a Forest Grove winemaker, Ernest Reuter, won a silver medal at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair The vineyard on which the grapes were grown was located on David Hill west of Forest Grove.
Middle twentieth century
Wine production in Oregon, like elsewhere in the United States, shut down during the Prohibition era, but resumed in 1933. The Oregon wine industry remained small for several decades, and was dominated by fruit wines (including wines based on grapes other than Vitis vinifera). By that time the California wine industry, with its warmer climate, had come to dominate wine production in the United States. Only two Oregon wineries produced wine using V. vinifera through the middle of the century, both on a rather small scale.
Rebirth of an industry: The 1960s and 1970s
The Oregon wine industry started to rebuild in the 1960s. Hillcrest Vineyard, established by UC Davis graduate Richard Sommer, opened near Roseburg in 1961 (in what is now the Umpqua Valley AVA), with the first vintage appearing for sale in 1964. Among the first varieties planted by Sommer in 1961 was the first Pinot noir in Oregon that was also the first commercially available Oregon Pinot noir with the 1967 vintage. Also in the 1960s, several winemakers started planting Pinot noir grapes in the Willamette Valley, including David Lett and Charles Coury. In 1966, Lett planted a vineyard in the hills outside of Dundee (Eyrie Vineyards).
By 1970, the state had five bonded wineries, with in production. Many out-of-state winemakers, the bulk of them from California, began migrating to the state, including Dick Erath, Dick and Nancy Ponzi, Susan and Bill Sokol Blosser of Sokol Blosser Winery, David and Ginny Adelsheim, Pat and Joe Campbell, Jerry and Ann Preston, and Myron Redford. In 1973, Oregon passed its landmark land-use law, which imposed strict separation between agricultural and urban uses of land via such mechanisms as the Urban Growth Boundary and Exclusive Farm Use Zones. This prevented many hillsides, deemed inappropriate for other crops which are easier to grow on flat fields, from being converted to housing. Also in the 1970s, the winemakers of the region began to organize to promote their vintages. In 1977, the first coffee table book about Northwest wines, entitled Winemakers of the Pacific Northwest, was printed; the following year, a joint marketing brochure entitled "Discover Oregon Wines" was published.