Very sad about Hyland indeed. My wife’s family was the previous owner and partner of that beautiful place. Sad I couldn’t raise the money to buy it from them a couple years ago.
Phillip;
Maybe sad or maybe not. You would very well be looking at a negative ROI with negative cash flow if you had bought it. Depends on how well you wallet can take those negatives.
There are quite a few new wineries in both CA and OR, that have been writen about before, whose business plan was based upon selling $50-$100+ wines. Not likely to happen. Nor is the continuance of those wineries unless they were very deeppocketed, more of a hobby than a business.
For a mere $3.5 million, you can have this vineyard site, too. 207 acres, includes 4000 square foot house (a nice one) and only the pasture land. There are another 400 acres of mixed forest, scrub and pasture available. Point being, there’s no need to clear forest land when there are parcels like this available if you were crazy enough to plant a vineyard this big.
If I had the $3.5 mil, I’d buy this place just for the setting. It’s outside McMinnville, just above the Youngberg Hill B&B.
There’s certainly a lot more bling in Oregon wine country than 10+ years ago. The tasting rooms all have expensive facades, and tasting fees are the norm, not the exception. Even Argyle used to only charge to taste the bubblies, and the still wines were free. So, yeah, there’s no doubt that things have changed. The young pourer at De Ponte had no idea that Parker had ever reviewed Oregon wines himself!
I’d go you one further and say that tasting rooms are the norm, not the exception. Of course, with 400 wineries in the state, not all have tasting rooms, but 10 years ago there were maybe 10 that were open regularly north of Salem. The number now is probably 5 times that if not more.
Interestingly, of my favorite wineries, there are only 3 that maintain regular hours and they did ten years ago, too - Bethel Heights, Cristom and Witness Tree. They’ve also undergone the greatest price creep.
In case anyone is interested — here’s the total Oregon acreage devoted to Vinifera:
2009 - 19,600
2008 - 19,300
2007 - 17,400
2006 - 15,600
2005 - 14,100
2003 - 13,400
2002 - 12,100
2001 - 11,100
2000 - 10,500
1999 - 9,800
1991 - 5,950
1990 - 5,682
1980 - 1,100
1972 - 200
1968 - 100
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
And Adam, for reference sake I will report California’s winegrape acreage:
California Winegrape Acreage Historical Totals
Year Bearing Non-bearing Reported Total *Estimated Total
2009 448,957 24,353 473,311 531,000
2008 443,690 27,120 470,810 526,000
2007 445,472 26,415 471,887 523,000
2006 448,003 27,279 475,282 527,000
2005 445,141 25,856 470,997 522,000
2004 440,296 26,639 466,935 513,000
2003 437,532 34,913 472,445 529,000
2002 431,777 50,089 481,266 556,000
2001 424,695 64,811 489,579 570,000
2000 403,287 77,392 480,679 568,000
1999 374,752 95,407 470,158 554,000
1998 342,547 84,734 427,282 507,000
I’ve heard it said that in Oregon “we are but a zit on the ass of California” in terms of grape acreage and cases of wine produced. No new information here…just some perspective.
best,
Doug
Ha- ha.
Colossal image fail.
And 40,000 in Napa County alone, for whatever it’s worth. I’m not sure I see your point.
Bob,
Didn’t really have a point — other than to introduce some numbers into the pissing match that you and Gordon were having. 
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
According to Napa Valley Vintners, only 9% of Napa County is planted to vineyards, with only another 3% suitable for planting. And it is true that within the Ag Preserve (where I live and farm) you can only subdivide and build one house for every 40 acres, and in the hills (watershed area, I believe), only 1 per 160 acres. So while some folks are still building mansions, they have to be sizable estates, by definition of the ordinance. What style of architecture they choose is, as with most of these things, a matter of preference/taste.
We were? 
No peeing contest on my part. I am very aware of the numbers Adam Lee put up. Can’t argue why the Evanstads bought the property, but I can tell you the neighbors in the area are glad they did and that a hotel will never go on top of the mountain now.
Had Bob been elected to the zoning commision the Evanstads would never have been able to build their house or new winery. Penner Ash would still be in the old collective tasting rooms downtown. Soter would still be in his barn and no new tasting room. Trisatheum would be serving out of a trailer, as would Bergstrom,etc. etc, etc. That’s just his view on life, well OK. But Bob wasn’t appointed to the zoning commision. Winery tourism came to the Valley. I can understand his dislike of the conditions, the traffic in Dundee drives me crazy too, and as he said I’m only a frequent visitor.!
No more peeing contest on my part with Bob. We probably even disagree on the definition of a McMansion, but it’s like wine, we all have our opinions, and I’ll drink to that. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Gordon, you’re wrong again. Tony Soter would still be in California or perhaps he would have never left Portland to begin with. Josh Bergstrom would be driving a tractor on his family’s hobby vineyard, Lynn Penner-Ash would still be at Rex Hill and Grace Evenstad would be back in Minnesota admiring her ring.
Actually, Bergstrom and P-A have nice facilities. Bergstrom’s is pretty rustic and P-A’s blends into the hill very nicely. Trisateum isn’t horrible if you like art galleries. At least it’s down the hill from the road and doesn’t stand out like a zit the size of a marble on the end of your nose like this place, which is bad enough on its own but is made worse by the attitude that spawned it.
Oh . . . and Penner-Ash was never in a “collective tasting room downtown”. They were at the Carlton Winemaker’s Studio on the outskirts - such as they are - of Carlton. That was before there were any tasting rooms at all in the collective 3 or 4 square blocks that make up “downtown”. 
A bit of thread drift. I would agree with you, with regards to Bethel Heights pricing. However, based on my purchase records, the Witness Tree Vintage Select has only increased $5 over the past 7 vintages.
For those of you that have never been to Domaine Serene, the picture tht Bob shows would come from the very lower back side of the vineyard looking up at the winery. About 99.9% of visitors would never see that view. It is also very dated, in that DS has done extensive landscaping, which has grown a lot, and even that view is not representative of current conditions. As far as your hilarious fixation on Grace’s ring. Having once lived in Texas for four years the audacious display of wealth by many of the residents there is such that anything Grace wears would seem conservative. But maybe for a young Oregon boy with few life experiences, it does seem large to you.
These prices seem cheap, like, really cheap. Is there property in Napa anywhere close to these prices?
In thinking about it, you’re right. I was thinking more of BH and Cristom - and longer than 7 years ago, too. I think my first Cristom Marjorie was $40 at the winery. I’m pretty sure the “ladies” are now $55, but I’m too lazy to look it up.
Which prices are those, Sean? The 200 acres near McMinnville? If so, I think there’s a “volume discount”. Certainly smaller parcels go for more per acre, even here, but I doubt you can touch property in NoCal for that price which, after figuring a rough estimate of the value for the house, is something around $13-15,000 per acre.