History

The First Kramer Wines

Our introduction to the wine world came during our college days at Washington State University in Pullman. We purchased a book written by a British author with a wide array of recipes for making wine out of almost anything—rose petals, oranges, potatoes, and berries. Our first wine was made from oranges because of its availability in the winter. One of the techniques we used was to rub the skins to extract more flavor. We produced one gallon, and wine was surprisingly good! When we moved to rural Warren, Oregon, where we planted many types of berries, and eventually, made some berry wines. We entered our wine at the Oregon State Fair, and ribbons started to line the walls. By the late 1970s we discovered that wine grapes were successfully being grown in Oregon, and planted a trial vineyard.

Discovering Pinot Noir

In 1980, we took a wine appreciation class from the wine writer Matt Kramer at his home in Portland. The class on the wines of Burgundy included a wine from Matt’s cellar that he said was the perfect Pinot Noir. It was phenomenal--a Domaine Romanée Conte, a very expensive, highly regarded red Burgundy! After visiting some Oregon wineries, and tasting their young Pinot Noirs, it became clear to us that we wanted to be a part of this industry.

Site Selection

We knew we wanted to be in Yamhill County, because that is where most of the vineyards were located in the early 1980s. In 1983, we eventually found a hillside property in Gaston.  This property had been fallow for at least seven years so blackberry brambles, clover, wild daisies, and onion ruled the field. However, we saw great potential, and the slope of the site was ideal. We later learned that our vineyard soils are silty clay loam Peavine and Willakenzie—excellent soils for growing wine grapes.

We started planting the vineyard in 1984. We rooted the plants from cuttings taken from a neighbor’s vineyard and planted with shovels two acres every year of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Müller-Thurgau. Later we planted small amounts of Carmine and Muscat.  Currently, we have 20 acres with 18 in production, and four more were recently cleared.  We’re planting Pinot Meunier and Grüner Veltliner in this new block.