Oregon’s Yamhill County is earthy, with a smooth finish

Carlton, Ore. — Every autumn for the past four decades, farmers and vineyard managers have picked, crushed and pressed increasing amounts of wine grapes from the gently rolling hillsides of Yamhill County.

During that span, Oregon’s wine industry has grown from a handful of pioneering visionaries to a $1 billion-a-year industry. Wine squeezed from its flagship grape, pinot noir, is now among the most coveted on the planet.

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Randy L. Rasmussen/Newhouse News Service

Vines of pinot noir grapes hang in the autumn sunshine near Carlton, Ore. Hillsides once covered by plum and then filbert orchards now are stitched with thousands of acres of wine-grape vines.

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This year should prove no exception. Although cool spring temperatures pushed ripening schedules back a few weeks, armies of workers will hit the vineyards in mid-October to bring in what looks to be another world-beating harvest of grapes.

The world, in turn, is taking notice. For every bottle of wine produced in Yamhill County and sold elsewhere, wine enthusiasts, new businesses and entrepreneurs with an eye on the future are trekking to places such as Dundee, Dayton, Amity and McMinnville to see for themselves just what the fuss is all about.

But nowhere is Yamhill County’s newly found reputation as a premier national wine-country destination more apparent than Carlton, once a roadside dot west of Newberg that now contains more licensed wineries and wine-related facilities within its city limits than any other municipality in the state.

Changes come to Carlton

The past decade or so has amounted to a spectacular reinvention for Carlton, which saw much of its economic vitality drained in the 1960s and 1970s, when its once-vibrant logging trade faded into obscurity.

“It was just kind of a sleepy little town which, unfortunately, was kind of dying,” said Mayor Kathie Oriet. “Changes since then have been pretty spectacular.”

Now, most weekend nights, Carlton’s cozy, old-fashioned downtown buzzes with visitors.

“Even a few years ago, no one would have believed a transformation like this would be possible out here,” said Carlton resident Gwen Jernstedt. “A lot of the visitors we get now, they tell us, they’ve done the Napa thing. Now it’s time for Yamhill County.”

Jernstedt and her husband, Gordon, do their part to keep Carlton attractive for locals and visitors alike by voluntarily weeding and tending the roses in Carlton Upper Park, not far from downtown.

Their efforts represent the sort of community spirit that prompted noted Oregon winemaker Ken Wright to be the first to stake his viticultural future to Carlton more than 15 years ago.

“We had no idea of what was to come,” Wright said. “But we knew this was a community that appeared to be true to its roots. Unlike a lot of places, you can just physically exhale when you get to this town.”

More to see

Yet if Carlton, with its 20 licensed wineries and 30 tasting rooms, has become the unlikely epicenter of Oregon’s wine industry, the rest of Yamhill County is doing more than its share to provide a variety of new and diverse attractions.

In McMinnville, for instance, thousands of visitors annually spill through the doors of the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum to see famed aviator Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose wooden airplane and dozens of accompanying exhibits.

The 120,000-square-foot aviation museum, which opened on D-Day — June 6 — 2001, was complemented this year with the opening of an equally sized wing devoted to space flight. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a Titan II SLV missile, which served America’s space endeavors from the advent of the nuclear age through the early phases of the moon-reaching Apollo program.

A few miles east, in Newberg, construction is proceeding on what will be Oregon wine country’s first true destination resort. The Allison, featuring 85 deluxe guest rooms and suites, an international-caliber spa and upscale restaurant showcasing Pacific Northwest cuisine and wines, is set to open in advance of the 2009 grape harvest.

A blockhouse and an erratic rock

A quick drive to Dayton provides a fascinating glimpse of the 1855 Military Blockhouse, prominently situated on the public square. The structure was originally at Fort Yamhill and was later moved to Grand Ronde Agency in the 1860s, where it served as a jail. In 1911, the blockhouse was moved to its current location.

Just eight miles south of Dayton, travelers can cross the Willamette River the way pioneers did — by grabbing a spot on the Wheatland Ferry. An easterly turn off Wallace Road onto Wheatland Road is a nice reminder that the best means of travel aren’t necessarily the fastest.

About six miles southwest of McMinnville on Oregon 18, a geologic wonder gives mute testament to the power of prehistoric floods that swept from modern-day Montana to the Pacific Ocean. The so-called Glacial Erratic Rock — a Volkswagen-sized chunk of rock of a type found nowhere else in the vicinity — was carried to Yamhill County in the same surging waves that contained ton upon ton of the verdant top soils that have long made the county an agricultural powerhouse.

Rising above all of these landmarks and points of interest, however, are the growing numbers of vineyards that now dominate Yamhill County’s undulating hillsides. They provide a constant reminder of the vital role that wine grapes have played in reshaping not only the county’s landscape, but also its economy.