Copper Cane lost Oregon label argument

[Bryan_Carr]

Hi Bryan,

I would offer that the AVAs function as a form of “patent” with TTB as the role of Patent Office. It’s not protectionism to hoard prosperity for Oregon wineries, it’s to stop disingenuous companies from putting out shady plonk with names like Willametter Journal.
Take a moment to google the Willametter Journal wine, and read the label prose. The “Willamette region” is not an AVA, but it certainly implies that the fruit would be of a similar nature to, Dom Drouhin, Patricia Green(Hirsch bottling excepted), and my own wines. My understanding is that a significant percentage of the fruit for that wine was from southern Oregon and not the WV AVA.
The consumer benefits from having laws requiring a winery using Oregon AVAs to produce the wine in Oregon, if only to reduce the likelihood that they will buy a bottle of wine where the place is implied rather than actually used.

Terroir is part of the individual nature of wine production, and things like the ambient temperature of the production facility should mark the nature of the wines(not really likely for a wine like Elouan). Marketing terroir is part of how growers in a region work together to market their wines, and in the Valley we all care very much about our fellow wineries success. My competitors success is my success as well. A long time ago, the founders of wine growing in the valley put forward the idea that Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley was special. A ton of us have bought in to that and finally after 50 years there is an understanding both with consumers and critics that the Willamette Valley is special. So suddenly having “crappy macro-wineries”, and story telling twits like Tarlov as well, showing up does get under the skin. It’s all part of the deal, but in most industries plagiarism like Joe Wagner’s would be a lawsuit on the spot(and there is a reason why he lost).

Rant over…at some point I need to just post TNs for a couple of months of penance…

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for the thoughtful response and that totally makes sense re: Willametter Journal and “the Willamette region” as an implication. If that’s not whats in the bottle, then it’s super disingenuous to imply it and I’m with you 100%.

Like I said, I DEFINITELY understand regional and industry solidarity, everyone wins when you’re in it together. I still think, from a consumer perspective, that if what’s in the bottle is 100% Willamette Valley fruit it should be able to be labeled as such however, but that’s not really what this Wagner thing is about.

[Jim_Anderson]

Somehow I have a feeling many would feel differently about this issue if this wasn’t a crappy macro winery that we all hate. The way I see it, from a consumer perspective this can either be meant to imply that:
a) winemaking facilities have terroir too, or
b) that AVAs are only a regional marketing and protectionism tool rather than a coherent system of site classifications based on terroir

I understand that at their base AVAs ARE marketing tools, but making it so plain does take a bit of the shine off of it for me.

I get Marcus’ point that from an industry and regional development perspective taking grapes from one region and vinifying them and taking the profits in another is harmful to those producers that have worked hard to build the source region’s infrastructure and reputation (to say nothing of what the Wagners are doing to WVV and their Oregon suppliers), however as a wine consumer, vineyard site and how the wine is made is what is important to me, with a secondary consideration possibly to if the producer is someone I feel like I can support (good to their employees, not a creep, etc.). I don’t see how this helps consumers at all. I could see if someone was lying about where the grapes came from, but if they’re not?

Hi Bryan,

I would offer that the AVAs function as a form of “patent” with TTB as the role of Patent Office. It’s not protectionism to hoard prosperity for Oregon wineries, it’s to stop disingenuous companies from putting out shady plonk with names like Willametter Journal.
Take a moment to google the Willametter Journal wine, and read the label prose. The “Willamette region” is not an AVA, but it certainly implies that the fruit would be of a similar nature to, Dom Drouhin, Patricia Green(Hirsch bottling excepted), and my own wines. My understanding is that a significant percentage of the fruit for that wine was from southern Oregon and not the WV AVA.
The consumer benefits from having laws requiring a winery using Oregon AVAs to produce the wine in Oregon, if only to reduce the likelihood that they will buy a bottle of wine where the place is implied rather than actually used.

Terroir is part of the individual nature of wine production, and things like the ambient temperature of the production facility should mark the nature of the wines(not really likely for a wine like Elouan). Marketing terroir is part of how growers in a region work together to market their wines, and in the Valley we all care very much about our fellow wineries success. My competitors success is my success as well. A long time ago, the founders of wine growing in the valley put forward the idea that Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley was special. A ton of us have bought in to that and finally after 50 years there is an understanding both with consumers and critics that the Willamette Valley is special. So suddenly having “crappy macro-wineries”, and story telling twits like Tarlov as well, showing up does get under the skin. It’s all part of the deal, but in most industries plagiarism like Joe Wagner’s would be a lawsuit on the spot(and there is a reason why he lost).

Rant over…at some point I need to just post TNs for a couple of months of penance…

Feel free to keep ranting on this topic.

[Alan_Rath]

I think it’s a shame that there are rules at all - except for truth in labeling. If someone wants to buy (or farm) a vineyard, and truck the fruit into a remote winery to make the wine, so what? California producers do it all the time, with fruit coming from hundreds of miles away. I don’t see that a state line makes any difference.

[dougwilder]

I don’t feel that I should be able to simply buy fruit from Napa and take advantage of what Joe Wagner and his family spent their time, and lots of money as well, developing Northern California.

I understand where you’re coming from; but by this logic, a California restaurant should not be able to serve “Hudson Valley foie gras” (for example), or specialty meats/produce they want to label from anywhere outside their area.

I think this would only be equivalent if the geese were transported from Hudson Valley and the livers extracted in California.

[Alan_Rath]

I understand where you’re coming from; but by this logic, a California restaurant should not be able to serve “Hudson Valley foie gras” (for example), or specialty meats/produce they want to label from anywhere outside their area.

I think this would only be equivalent if the geese were transported from Hudson Valley and the livers extracted in California.

Would there be anything wrong with that, as long as the marketing and labeling is reflected properly?

[Patrick_Duffy]

Not a lawyer and certainly not an expert on AVA labelling regulations. But I do have a MBA from a “well known eastern business school.” A few opinions:

1. The problem isn’t that he labeled the bottle as containing grapes coming from Oregon. The problem is that he clearly wanted people to think that they came from specific AVA’s in Oregon, when they did not. This is deceptive at best and illegal at worst. He clearly crossed a line and he has now officially been told that his labeling does not meet the requirements of the federal and state regulations.
2. He can talk about how the laws and regulations in this area are nonsense, etc. but they are what they are. You do not get to break the law (and his doing so was clearly with deceptive intent and not noble protest) and then claim that it was okay because you don’t like the law. Change the law and label in compliance with the new law. It’s not like he’s ‘just protecting the consumer’ somehow by labeling his product the way he did.
3. Now that the feds and state have told him that he can’t sell bottles with the labels he’s been using, how many bottles does he have that have to be relabeled? Doesn’t he have to take back and relabel any bottles that have not yet been sold to final consumers by wholesalers, retailers and restaurants? If it’s illegal for him to sell bottles with deceptive labeling, it must also be illegal for retailers, et al. to do so, particularly now that the authorities have made their decision.
4. He refused to accept grapes from growers that he said may have smoke taint. He did so apparently without actually testing any of the grapes and he did so the week of harvest. I’d be curious about his contract with the growers. Certainly, if I’m a grower, I’m going to insist on a ‘take or pay’ clause if I’m committing to sell him all of my grapes. However, where is he going to get Oregon pinot grapes for the 2018 vintage? His pulling this on the growers really seems like a way of saying “I’m not making Oregon pinot anymore. Thanks for the money, suckers.” He doesn’t have any apparent alternative source of Oregon pinot grapes for this vintage and it takes a heck of a pile of grapes to make 1.4 million bottles. AND what grower would be willing to contract with him for any future year? Having welshed on me and/or other growers for 2018, I’d be crazy, if I were a grower, to deal with him on any terms.
5. It has been my experience that grapes that are shipped significant distances to the winery after harvest do not produce very good to great wine. So, yes, taking the grapes to California does make a difference in the quality of the product. You can argue that grapes could be trucked a long way in a single state and you would be right that some are, but a state line is a not inherently bad line to draw on this.

[Gray_G]

bottom line is that I will continue to support smaller wineries run by people I can know
cheers

[Al_Osterheld]

I believe that in the current ruling he’s allowed to “sell through” the bottles that are already labeled, although there additional complaints that have been filed.

-Al

[brigcampbell]

Funny, Oregon .015%

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

Isn’t the idea of the AVA designation about where the grapes are grown? Why does location of vinification matter? Seems like ultimate quality of the wine would be impacted more by the method/style of vinification than simply the location of the winery. Unless an AVA specified using only local, wild yeasts or something like that.

Um…part of the method for high quality winemaking is gentle handling, and avoiding road trips of a thousand miles with the fruit. No offense to the Indiana wineries, and I have a good friendwho works with Durant fruit in Chicago, but picking, then loading the fruit onto a refrigerated and gassed truck, driving it to a winery in California, or the train station for mid-west delivery, then unloading it however many hours/days later is not high quality winemaking.

Also, most of the people on this board are what I would consider elite consumers in terms of palate evolution, knowledge, and, especially, level of interest in wine. The idea that someone in Chicago or Northern California is actually spending much time in the remote vineyards at harvest is not realistic. IMO, that time is crucial to making the best decisions and also for fine tuning the process to accommodate the unique qualities of the fruit in that year.

For 30 brix Zinfandel and Cabernet production, maybe this doesn’t matter as much, but for 21-23 Brix Pinot Noir, it’s a huge part of ultimate quality.

Unless of course the consumer really only wants this bottle to taste just like the last bottle. But if that’s the case, then Joe W makes wines from plenty of other places that they can enjoy.

Honestly, Wagner is like a fast food chain selling “Kobe” burgers…

[Alan_Rath]

part of the method for high quality winemaking is gentle handling, and avoiding road trips of a thousand miles with the fruit. No offense to the Indiana wineries, and I have a good friendwho works with Durant fruit in Chicago, but picking, then loading the fruit onto a refrigerated and gassed truck, driving it to a winery in California, or the train station for mid-west delivery, then unloading it however many hours/days later is not high quality winemaking.

There are a number of California wineries who get fruit from a fair distance away: SRH, SLH, Anderson Valley, even Oregon, and truck it to Sonoma County. Even some growers who truck fruit for their own label quite a distance to a winery facility. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen fruit sitting on a crush pad for hours and hours, waiting to be processed. And if you’re just going to cold soak it anyway for a day or two or more, how is riding in a truck that different, particularly if it’s refrigerated?

[Kris_Patten]

I believe part of the issue is that Oregon lawmakers believe the wine was adulterated with California wine or wine based product and shouldn’t even be legally called Oregon Pinit Noir and they are doing DNA tests to see if that is true.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

part of the method for high quality winemaking is gentle handling, and avoiding road trips of a thousand miles with the fruit. No offense to the Indiana wineries, and I have a good friendwho works with Durant fruit in Chicago, but picking, then loading the fruit onto a refrigerated and gassed truck, driving it to a winery in California, or the train station for mid-west delivery, then unloading it however many hours/days later is not high quality winemaking.

There are a number of California wineries who get fruit from a fair distance away: SRH, SLH, Anderson Valley, even Oregon, and truck it to Sonoma County. Even some growers who truck fruit for their own label quite a distance to a winery facility. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen fruit sitting on a crush pad for hours and hours, waiting to be processed. And if you’re just going to cold soak it anyway for a day or two or more, how is riding in a truck that different, particularly if it’s refrigerated?

When conditions are good, there can be considerable margin for handling fruit. 1993 Archery Summit WV Pinot Noir was an excellent wine made in the Pine Ridge facility in California. But Gary Andrus still built a winery in the valley because he wanted to make the best possible Pinot Noirs that he could.
We all deal with production differently, based upon our resources but I doubt many of us pushing for high quality wines would choose to truck grapes 1600 miles.

Your comments about fruit sitting on the pad and in pre-ferment(I don’t even chill our fruit, it’s just typically 3-8 days for obvious signs of ferment to start with native yeast) are often true, IMO. But there are exceptions(2007, 2011, 2013). To me, it’s a much bigger deal to not be able to be in close proximity to the vineyards in the weeks leading up to harvest.

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

Thanks John,

I do think its crazy that you can use the very specific vineyard name, but the less-specific AVA name is barred for interstate wines.

Cheers,
Bill

The vineyard name has no legal regulation, while the AVAs are a legislative creation(or perhaps more accurately, a regulatory creation by the TTB which was legislated to regulate production of alcoholic products among other things.)

[Marcus_Goodfellow]

He agreed to change the label AFTER selling the remaining 900K bottles. That’s a lot of bad PN.

Contrarian view: a million bottles of PN with Oregon splashed all over the label consumed throughout the US it is good for the overall demand of Oregon wine.

Contrarian view to the contrarian view: a million bottles of bad PN with Oregon splashed all over them is terrible for overall demand of Oregon wine.

Vijay Singh was angry when one female golfer was allowed to play on a men’s PGA tour event because it pushed a male golfer working to get on the tour out of the spot. That million cases occupies the sales to consumers of 2500 wineries my size. You would have to build an incredible amount of recognition to make up for the opportunities lost through Copper Cane’s ability to occupy entry level consumer spending choices.

To be frank, I have no beef with A to Z or Union Wine Company as larger Oregon producers. The principals were here when the region was being built, and they reside in and contribute to Oregon’s economy. They pay the Oregon Wine Board tax(out of state wineries like cc do not). And they are good partners in building recognition for Oregon. I don’t have a beef with out of state wineries representing our fruit with integrity, but AVAs are there to manage plagiarism, and at some point most states don’t allow out of state wineries to use the AVAs. Whether that’s protectionism or preservation, it’s also fiscally more efficient from a regulatory standpoint.

[larry_schaffer]

part of the method for high quality winemaking is gentle handling, and avoiding road trips of a thousand miles with the fruit. No offense to the Indiana wineries, and I have a good friendwho works with Durant fruit in Chicago, but picking, then loading the fruit onto a refrigerated and gassed truck, driving it to a winery in California, or the train station for mid-west delivery, then unloading it however many hours/days later is not high quality winemaking.

There are a number of California wineries who get fruit from a fair distance away: SRH, SLH, Anderson Valley, even Oregon, and truck it to Sonoma County. Even some growers who truck fruit for their own label quite a distance to a winery facility. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen fruit sitting on a crush pad for hours and hours, waiting to be processed. And if you’re just going to cold soak it anyway for a day or two or more, how is riding in a truck that different, particularly if it’s refrigerated?

When conditions are good, there can be considerable margin for handling fruit. 1993 Archery Summit WV Pinot Noir was an excellent wine made in the Pine Ridge facility in California. But Gary Andrus still built a winery in the valley because he wanted to make the best possible Pinot Noirs that he could.
We all deal with production differently, based upon our resources but I doubt many of us pushing for high quality wines would choose to truck grapes 1600 miles.

Your comments about fruit sitting on the pad and in pre-ferment(I don’t even chill our fruit, it’s just typically 3-8 days for obvious signs of ferment to start with native yeast) are often true, IMO. But there are exceptions(2007, 2011, 2013). To me, it’s a much bigger deal to not be able to be in close proximity to the vineyards in the weeks leading up to harvest.

Marcus,

There is the ‘ideal’ and then there is the ‘reality’ of the wine biz. Shipping grapes - whether it’s minutes away, hours away, or more happens quite often, and if handled well, really does not have a ‘negative impact’ on the final wine.

I understand where you are coming from - but let me give you another ‘example’ where there is the ‘conventional wisdom’ and then there’s the ‘reality’: sorting fruit and removing MOG, etc. The general consensus is that taking out all MOG and ‘underripe’ and ‘overripe’ fruit is the way to go, but does that actually lead to a ‘better’ wine? Discuss . . .

Cheers.

[David_Bu3ker]

What do you think Larry? Does the sorting/removal of MOG make better wine?

[larry_schaffer]

What do you think Larry? Does the sorting/removal of MOG make better wine?

Define ‘better’? That really is a challenge. Theoretically, it will make the fruit ‘cleaner’ and remove some ‘background noise’ in a wine. But no one can truly tell you what MOG adds to a finished wine or ‘takes away’ from a finished wine.

I’ve asked the question before and I’ll ask it again - when discussing grape processing, for instance, how ‘reflective of the terroir of the vineyard and site’ is it when you remove all MOG, destem everything, cluster sort to remove ‘under’ or ‘over’ ripe clusters, grape sort to remove grapes that are not ‘uniform in size’, etc? Something to think about . . .

Everyone on this board loves to point to certain things and say ‘show me the research’ - I don’t think that happens with stuff like this often - and perhaps it should.

Cheers.

[David_Bu3ker]

Reasearch of qualitative assessments is notoriously fraught with peril.

But you knew that when you asked the question.

[RichardFlack]

Somehow I have a feeling many would feel differently about this issue if this wasn’t a crappy macro winery that we all hate. The way I see it, from a consumer perspective this can either be meant to imply that:
a) winemaking facilities have terroir too, or
b) that AVAs are only a regional marketing and protectionism tool rather than a coherent system of site classifications based on terroir

I understand that at their base AVAs ARE marketing tools, but making it so plain does take a bit of the shine off of it for me.

I get Marcus’ point that from an industry and regional development perspective taking grapes from one region and vinifying them and taking the profits in another is harmful to those producers that have worked hard to build the source region’s infrastructure and reputation (to say nothing of what the Wagners are doing to WVV and their Oregon suppliers), however as a wine consumer, vineyard site and how the wine is made is what is important to me, with a secondary consideration possibly to if the producer is someone I feel like I can support (good to their employees, not a creep, etc.). I don’t see how this helps consumers at all. I could see if someone was lying about where the grapes came from, but if they’re not?

Hi Bryan,

I would offer that the AVAs function as a form of “patent” with TTB as the role of Patent Office. It’s not protectionism to hoard prosperity for Oregon wineries, it’s to stop disingenuous companies from putting out shady plonk with names like Willametter Journal.
Take a moment to google the Willametter Journal wine, and read the label prose. The “Willamette region” is not an AVA, but it certainly implies that the fruit would be of a similar nature to, Dom Drouhin, Patricia Green(Hirsch bottling excepted), and my own wines. My understanding is that a significant percentage of the fruit for that wine was from southern Oregon and not the WV AVA.
The consumer benefits from having laws requiring a winery using Oregon AVAs to produce the wine in Oregon, if only to reduce the likelihood that they will buy a bottle of wine where the place is implied rather than actually used.

Terroir is part of the individual nature of wine production, and things like the ambient temperature of the production facility should mark the nature of the wines(not really likely for a wine like Elouan). Marketing terroir is part of how growers in a region work together to market their wines, and in the Valley we all care very much about our fellow wineries success. My competitors success is my success as well. A long time ago, the founders of wine growing in the valley put forward the idea that Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley was special. A ton of us have bought in to that and finally after 50 years there is an understanding both with consumers and critics that the Willamette Valley is special. So suddenly having “crappy macro-wineries”, and story telling twits like Tarlov as well, showing up does get under the skin. It’s all part of the deal, but in most industries plagiarism like Joe Wagner’s would be a lawsuit on the spot(and there is a reason why he lost).

Rant over…at some point I need to just post TNs for a couple of months of penance…

Not to mention yeasts etc in the air. To me locus of production is part of the character of the wine. To say nothing of the effect of trucking the grapes. (Mind you Aussies might disagree).

I do wonder if the negative attitudes are magnified by the wine being of low quality. Would the reaction be the same if the wine was full of class and character and high quality.

This reinforces the need for taste test as part of any AOC system, even if only as a fall back or last resort but ideally as part of regular approval ( eg Ontario VQA).