How did A to Z start?The first vintage at A to Z was in 2001, at a time when Oregon wines were starting to be recognized for quality, but typically known as being pretty expensive, so very few people were buying them. The four founders, Deb and Bill Hatcher, Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill, were two married couples who had started their own personal brands, and were used to small scale winemaking. They saw an opportunity in the 2001 harvest when the yields were solid and the market a little soft, for high quality wine that people for once were happy to sell as bulk wine. They worked their connections and called friends around the country and said: “if we can put a blend together of this quantity and at this price, can you sell it?” And the right people said “absolutely.” So that is how A to Z started. Early on they thought it was going to be a brand that helped bankroll their personal wine brands. Then after 3-4 years they realized it had legs – it made sense, was sustainable, and part of the evolution of the Oregon wine industry, where suddenly if they could source the fruit and/or the wine, they could put Oregon wines on restaurant tables at a glass pour price. The key word being ‘consistently’, because supply had been a little bit variable until then. How has A to Z evolved since you joined?I joined A to Z in 2006, when we were basically a negociant brand with a small nimble team of 7, with partner wineries making wine for us, or going out and buying bulk wine. We were making some wine, but we didn’t have our own winery. It was a very flexible approach, because we bought what we could sell. It was cash rich even if it was asset poor. To really grow and become financially significant and sustainable, we quickly realized we had to commit to fruit contracts, double down working with key partners – and we had to buy a facility. That’s when we purchased the Rex Hill winery, vineyards and assets in the northern Willamette Valley. It gave us a physical home, a soul, where we could blend, finish and bottle the wines. And have that extra level of control. From that time on we enjoyed steady growth, from 50,000 cases in 2006 to 120,000 cases in 2010, to over 300,000 cases in 2015. When you get to that scale, suddenly different markets open up – you can supply supermarkets, cruise ships, you’re in all 50 states instead of a select 8. At the same time, while Pinot had been the only game in town and the driver of growth in Oregon, around 2014, partly in response to Pinot production in New Zealand and the Central Coast in California, Oregon whites started getting established, and we saw a better balance in the portfolio between red and white wines. What is your role as Executive Winemaker?It’s a big job for me, we have a team of winemakers so my job is to make sure we have the quantity and quality we need for the brand, and I work closely with our President Amy Prosenjak to achieve that. Up until late 2022 I was working in a winemaking leadership team with founders/winemakers, Cheryl Francis and Sam Tannahill, focused on quality and style. We recognized 15 years ago that while we wanted to highlight individual vintages, there has to be a familiarity from year to year, so it is working towards maintaining a certain quality and style within a vintage. A lot of my time is spent visiting vineyards and checking that wines in the cellar are tasting how we think they should be tasting. We don’t want to make a generic wine – we want to make Pinot Noir that stands up against Pinots from around the world. A lot of that is knowing when to stick with winemaking traditions, but also when to bring in technology. In the time I’ve been in the industry there has been a sea-change in the quality of the fruit coming from machine harvesting. Like Japan, labour shortages have become a real issue here. We also see a lot more specialization – with scale, we have people who are professional in every capacity and aspect. Back in the day it used to be the same person would do everything, from writing the invoice to emptying the barrels to spraying the vines from the tractor. We’ve been fortunate with our growth that we have been able to afford to invest in the best technology and modern conveniences of winemaking. But what we haven’t wanted to do is compromise our quality or to take shortcuts. We have a deep bench of people who have a lot of experience. At our production level and price point, with buying fruit from throughout the State we have been lucky to be able to buffer ourselves from localized challenges – such as forest fires, frosts, and birds. We know by being more spread out we are not as vulnerable. How do you maintain the small winery mentality?We try not to have a formula. We are really building a wine conceptually, trying to highlight the strengths from the different areas. Our experience is to let a wine do what it does best and then have faith the blend will speak for itself. We make two Pinots, and we know that each is always going to be the sum of the parts. If we have fruit from a particular vineyard in Southern Oregon, it may be low colour with more of a stone fruit profile, with higher alcohol or lower acidity, and we have to be very sensitive to when we pick it in the context of other fruit from a vineyard in another part of the State that might have brighter acidity, lower alcohol, darker colour and more rustic tannins. What are the characteristics of the different regions in Oregon?The caveats when we talk about the different regions are different soils, vine age, elevation, and clones. The soil is an important part of why the regions present themselves differently in the fruit. The oldest soils in the State are in the southwest and northeast corners, though there is not much cultivation in the northeast. In the Columbia Gorge, the Pinots are grown on thin soils, weathered basalt and sand, and the wines have a crystalline quality, with more citrus and even starfruit notes, which is quite unusual. In the Willamette Valley we have the classic three soil types: marine sedimentary because a lot of the Valley used to be under the ocean; volcanic soils because we live in an active volcanic zone like Japan; and windblown loess soils where the big ice dams coming out of Washington and Montana broke and the soils flooded down. The Umpqua Valley is outside the Willamette Valley but is still foothills, a crumpled landmass between the Coast Range and the Cascade Mountains, and we see quite a lot of clay there. Not the red clay with high iron content of the Dundee Hills, but a very black clay which is very rich, and gives high acidity, so you get this brightness and amazing intensity. In southern Oregon there are more diverse soils again, it is a warmer climate but with higher elevation, often 1500-1600 feet (450-500 meters). The grapes retain their acid well so the wines don’t become heavy, they maintain their acidity along with more stone fruit and texture. In the cooler parts of the State and the Willamette Valley the higher the acidity, the lower the sugar, the more primary the fruit flavours. In the warmer parts of the State, the lower the acidity, the higher the sugar, and the more secondary the flavours are. But clones of different varieties, and the different elevations also play into it. We blend across the regions to get the flavours we like. In hot years in Southern Oregon we achieve quite high sugars, more tropical fruit notes in Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, lower acidity, richer sugar, and higher alcohol wines. In cooler regions like the Willamette Valley and to some degree Umpqua Valley, we see more acid backbone, tannins that aren’t quite as supple. And all our wines are true Oregon appellation, which makes them stronger and more reliable. How do you express the Oregon essence in your wines, what are you looking for?In the early days of Oregon wine in the 1970s and 1980s, Cabernet, Riesling, and Chardonnay were grown on a small scale, and Pinot Noir was the cheapest wine produced. However, as understanding of the region developed and it became clear that these varieties weren’t suited to the Oregon climate, especially the Willamette Valley, Cabernet was pulled out. In whites, David Lett of Eyrie and David Adelsheim of Adelsheim were the driving forces behind the new focus on Pinot Gris. Previously, Pinot Noir was the star and driver of growth in Oregon. However, with increased Pinot Noir production in New Zealand and California’s Central Coast, since about 2014 more white wines are being grown, and the balance between red and white wines has improved. Looking back, at wine marketing events in the early 2000s we would define Oregon as half-way between Burgundy and California. I feel that was convenient because they are both known and respected, and who wouldn’t want a bit of Burgundy and California in their wines. What we’ve now come to terms with and feel proud about is that we are definitely different from both of them. We tend to have more fruit, ripeness and richness than Burgundy, but we don’t have as much as California. When I talk to Californian winemaking friends, particularly those in Sonoma County, they often ask ‘how do you get that freshness, intensity of flavour, and to be age-worthy?’ A big part of that is the macro-climate, the seasons, the amount of sunshine we are receiving. How do you differentiate the new Essence of Oregon Pinot Noir?For many years we’ve been making the A to Z Pinot, and it is always on the spectrum between red and dark fruit. It’s a wine you can drink on a daily basis, you don’t have to save it for a special occasion. With the Essence of Oregon we wanted to honour some of our growers who have been with us since the beginning, and motivate them with wine we make 3-5,000 cases of, like a Reserve for our Pinot program.