NEWS / FEATURES

Stats for 2016

The Southern Oregon University SOURCE Research Center released its 2016 Oregon Vineyard and Winery Census Report in late August.

Pinot Noir remains king accounting for 64 percent of all planted acreage and 57 percent of production. And the North Willamette Valley continues to lead the state with 73 percent of total tons crushed. In terms of bonded wineries, the report showed an increase from 702 to 725 for the state, with 554 in the Willamette Valley.

Yields for 2016 were mixed with varieties such as Riesling, Syrah and Merlot increasing, while Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir decreased. Pinot Noir’s harvested acreage rose from 15,507 in 2015 to 17,744 in 2016, about 14.4 percent increase; while the production of Pinot dropped from 50,737 to 45,851 tons, representing about a difference of 9.6 percent.

How could Pinot production go down and harvested acreage go up?

“Yield is not necessarily a simple thing to explain,” said longtime winegrower David Adelsheim of Adelsheim Vineyards. “For example, a vineyard will not have a high yield if weather during bloom was wet and/or cool. In 2016, the weather was not uniformly great during bloom, particularly in the Willamette Valley.  By comparison, in 2015, the weather during bloom was generally close to perfect. In fact,
by the time we started harvesting, some of the clusters were very large indeed, and so we had a higher-than-normal yield.

Adelsheim continued, “If you look at the data for the last 10 years, the Pinot Noir yield in 2015 was the highest in any year except 2007; the yield in 2016 was just about average.”

Case sales in 2016 increased 10 percent to nearly 3.4 million — translating to $529,075,387 —helped along by a 14 percent jump in national sales. Leading exports is Canada, accounting for 41 percent of export sales, or 26,798 cases; the runner-up is the U.K. at 6,953 cases.

For the complete report, visit https://inside.sou.edu/research/winecensus.html

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