Oregon: History

vinifera vine varieties arrived in the late 19th century. A census of 1860 revealed Oregon’s wine production was some 2,600 gal/98 hl. Twenty years later, Jackson county alone was producing 15,000 gal and a post-prohibition boom saw 28 wineries making a million gal by 1938, even if much of that was fruit wine. Little progress was made in the next 25 years as California dominated the market.

Oregon’s modern era dates from 1961, when HillCrest Vineyard was established near Roseburg (well south of today’s concentration of grape-growing) by Richard Sommer, a refugee from the University of California at davis, where he had been firmly advised that V. vinifera grapes could not be grown in Oregon.