SPARKLING WINES FINDING FAVOR.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

From the infancy of Oregon's wine industry, the elevation and soil composition of Willamette Valley vineyards have been known to be ideal for growing pinot noir and chardonnay grapes. In the past few decades, those two varieties have put Oregon on the viticultural map.

So it shouldn't come as much of a head-scratcher that several local wineries have begun dabbling in the production of champagne and other sparkling wines. Pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, after all, are two of the three varieties used in champagne.

"That's our passion, and why we started the winery and what we do best," says Buzz Kawders, managing partner of Domaine Meriwether, a specialty winery with roots in both Eugene and Carlton, northwest of Salem.

"The reason Meriwether settled in the Willamette Valley was (that) the idea was to produce Old-World, classic champagne," Kawders says. "The search was made literally around the world. Ultimately, it was decided the best region to produce what we wanted to produce was the Willamette Valley.

"There's no better place to grow pinot noir than the Willamette Valley."

Domaine Meriwether, which has its business office in Eugene and its production facility at the cooperative Carlton Winemakers Studio, produces about 5,000 cases per year of champagne in four cuvees, or blends. It produces another 2,000 to 3,000 cases of still - or nonsparkling - wine. (Although "champagne" is a protected term in many countries, referring only to the wines produced in the Champagne region of France, the term is often used in the United States to refer to domestic sparkling wines.)

Other local winemakers with sparkling wines include LaVelle Vineyards, which produces about 500 cases of champagne per year of 100 percent pinot noir grapes; Silvan Ridge/Hinman Vineyards, which produces 5,000 to 6,000 cases per year of sparkling wine from muscat grapes; and J. Albin Winery, which releases about 150 cases of sparkling wines including blanc de noir (French for "white wine from red grapes") in most years.

Prices per bottle vary: $14 for Silvan Ridge's early muscat; $22 for LaVelle's champagne; $16 to $35 for Domaine Meriwether's varieties; and $28 for J. Albin's current 2002 vintage.

Jonathan Oberlander, winemaker at Silvan Ridge, says a previous winemaker happened onto the muscat-based sparkling wine that has become one of the company's biggest sellers. In contrast to true champagnes, the sparkling muscat takes less than a year of aging.

"It was kind of one of those things where winemakers get bored and find things to do," Oberlander says. "It kind of came out of an experiment, I think, but it's been served at the White House a number of times."

True champagne can require eight years or more of aging, and a process that requires handling the wine as many as 40 times. The labor-intensive methode champenoise - which involves an initial cask fermentation and a secondary fermentation in the bottles - gives pause to many winemakers and increases costs to producers and consumers.

"I think in terms of what it takes to make sparkling wine, as a winemaker you have to ask yourself, 'Do I really want to go there?' '' says John Albin, a winemaker at King Estate Winery and proprietor of his private label, J. Albin.

"Often the answer is no," he says. "But Oregon has the climate and has the fruit. Personally, I think it has to be done."

Doug LaVelle, owner of LaVelle Vineyards in Elmira, says he has produced champagne only periodically in past years and has sold it exclusively to members of his wine club or through tasting rooms at the vineyard and Eugene's Fifth Street Public Market.

But he points out that champagne uses primarily pinot noir grapes that are picked earlier in the ripening process than those used for table wines, so he intends to begin producing a sparkling wine every year.

"Sparkling wine is made from under-ripe pinot noir, and we have a lot of that in Oregon - at least in off-years," LaVelle says. "On paper, this should be a great area for growing and producing sparkling wine."

Most agree that Argyle Winery in Dundee is Oregon's largest producer of sparkling wines. The winery carries four varieties - three from blends of pinot noir and chardonnay grapes, and a fourth exclusively from chardonnay.

After Argyle, the champagne leaders are anyone's guess.

Stephany Boettner, senior communications manager for the Oregon Wine Board, says there's no way to specifically track production and sales of the state's sparkling wines. Oregon's annual agricultural statistics survey does not differentiate between sparkling and still wines.

"Anecdotally, I've seen some new brands pop up in the last year or two," Boettner says. "But I think it's still a small, small segment of the industry."

Nationally, sparkling wines accounted for 4.1 percent of all wine purchases in 2005, according to the Wine Institute, an advocacy organization for California's wine producers. The 17.1 million gallons of sparkling wine produced by U.S. wineries accounted for 60 percent of the total 29.7 million gallons purchased across the country.

Other wine industry statistics indicate sparkling wines have long been a stable segment of the overall market. Consumption dipped from just under 30 million gallons in 1980 to just over 25 million gallons in 2001, then rebounded to 30.1 million gallons in 2004.

Domaine Meriwether's business grew by more than 100 percent in the past year, and Kawders expects it to continue growing by more than 30 percent annually. He cites his winery's "niche within a niche" of producing high-end, European-style dry champagnes rather than the typically fruity champagnes of most U.S. producers.

But Boettner, of the Oregon Wine Board, sees the overall sparkling wine market as being relatively flat. Although she and several other women in the industry meet once a week for what they call "bubbles night" and enjoy a glass or two of champagne with dinner, she says, most people see it as a "celebratory" drink, reserved for special occasions.

"I think it's seen as a holiday and New Year's beverage," she says. "But I think as people (try champagne) as an aperitif or starter glass, to start a meal ... it will not be seen so much as a celebratory drink."

Albin says he knows the reputation, but believes the public perception may be moving toward a more European model, where champagnes are often enjoyed before, after or during meals. Not only does Albin intend to continue producing champagnes under his own label, but he says some experiments are "in the works" that could lead to a King Estate sparkling wine.

"I think it's getting more and more recognized as something not just to celebrate with, because it pairs real well with everything," he says. "Anyway, every day's worth celebrating."

Kawders, at Domaine Meriwether, says he loves to serve champagne as an everyday drink - and especially to surprise guests at his home with flutes of bubbly.

"Nine times out of 10, they say, 'What's the occasion?' " Kawders says. "It just opens up opportunities for people like me to say, 'You're the occasion.'

"People still look at champagnes and sparkling wines as something that elevates the moment. And I like being the producer of something that elevates the moment."