Oregon picking up on Chardonnay potential

New clonal material, a change in picking times and greater co-operation between producers is behind Oregon’s current Chardonnay drive says one winemaker.

Speaking to the drinks business Jackson Family Wines’ Oregon general manager, Eugenia Keegan, said there was “just a new focus” on the white grape in the state and that it was likely to soon overtake Pinot Gris as the region’s leading white grape.

Keegan said that plantings of Pinot Gris in Oregon were “flatlining” while those of Chardonnay were growing exponentially – although still make up only 5% of total plantings.

Jackson Family Wines for example though is currently planting a further 10 acres of Chardonnay in Dundee Hills and eventually planned to have around 30% of each of its Oregon holdings planted with the grape.

There were several aspects to this renewed interest and drive to master Chardonnay; principally new and better clonal material, planting in more suitable sites and producers talking to each other about their Chardonnay winemaking as they have with Pinot Noir.

Keegan explained that, “in the early days the clonal material for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay was from California.”

It quickly became noticeable however that those Chardonnay clones were not ripening properly in Oregon’s cooler climate. Even though Chardonnay was being harvested up to four weeks after the Pinot Noir it still wasn’t ripe.

A switch to Dijon clones has helped fix this although Keegan stressed that even if better ripeness was now possible, producers in Oregon were aware they still had to “pick for acid.”

She continued: “We’ve learned that if you pick your grapes when they taste tropical you’ve waited too long.

“It’s how we learnt in California, you taste for ripeness – those flavours of baked apple, pineapple and peach.

“[In Oregon] Picking just under full ripeness is the right spot. We pick for acid. It creates the structural background and after that you can layer on the oak.”

She said that producers in Oregon were producing the “full range of styles” from all stainless steel to barrel-fermented and full malolactic and so on but nothing “butterscotchy.”

The learning process was being helped enormously by producers talking to one another as well. The famous ‘Steamboat’ meetings between winemakers to talk about Pinot Noir, “catapulted” that variety’s progress in Oregon said Keegan, “and that philosophy has carried over to Chardonnay. It really strengthens the learning curve.”

Read more: Jackson building new winery in Oregon