THE VINEYARD

When I saw Benton-Lane vineyard for the first time I thought I had won the lotto. It was an old sheep ranch called Sunnymount, and I learned the name was due to a mountain to the west that protected the ranch from winter storms. This mountain carves the rain clouds sending them south and north while the ranch is bathed in sun.

The elevations for our vineyard are perfect. The vineyard begins well above the fog of the Willamette Valley, and ends well below the wind line, where high winds impair ripeness. The land slopes gently to the south and east so the chilly air drains off instead of frosting the vines. The earth is made up of well-drained brick red soils. These soils drain quickly after a rain so the vines don’t sit in water, but instead search for it, and in the process, uncover new areas of nutrition. The drainage is so good that we can usually be on the tractor the day after a big rain.

If you have ever been to Napa, you have seen the beautiful vineyards, rows and rows of vines without a weed or blade of grass in site. They look great. The way you get such a beautiful vineyard is to use large amounts of chemical pre-emergent to poison the soil under the vine so nothing will grow. I know because I used to have a vineyard in Napa and I was one of the idiots poisoning my dirt. When I arrived in Oregon a colleague said I should read about michoriza. These are little fungi that chew up organic material so the vine roots can assimilate the nutrients. They were trying to help my vines and I had been poisoning them. So I learned how to help these little guys. I learned that bio-diversity helps them prosper so I planted lots of beneficial plants in the vineyard including crimson clover, vetch and legumes. Then we disc them into the soil. Soon I saw my vines get healthier. The leaves became bright green, they began to grow more actively and diseases seemed to have less effect over them. My vineyard was much uglier but much healthier.

Since then our vineyard has been Certified Sustainable. To be certified we must show that we have respected the land; that we have reduced chemical usage and prevented soil erosion. We open up the canopy of grape leaves so the fruit gets lots of air and sun. We take the left over grape skins, seeds and stems and compost them. This highly nutritious mixture is brewed as a tea and sprayed on our vines to inhibit mildew. We also spread this compost under our vines for additional nutrition. We were the first vineyard to use a weed burner. We use propane to burn the weeds in spring. It’s more expensive because of the fuel cost but it is the cleanest way to weed. The 1,600 degree flame evaporates the weeds so we don’t have to use chemicals.

Because we don't believe that stewardship ends at the property boundary, our vineyard is also certified Salmon Safe. To protect the local salmon run, inspectors come out to our vineyard when it’s raining and sample the runoff at the bottom of the vineyard. If the water is not absolutely clean then we cannot be certified.

We own our vineyard right now, but someday we will croak and the vineyard will belong to someone else. The land is here forever and we want to make sure that when we turn over the keys to the next owner that our vineyard is as healthy as possible.

We currently have 138 acres of vineyard. These are made up of seven (7) different Pinot Noir clones grafted to six (6) different rootstocks. Vineyard map

Benton-Lane’s environmentally conscious vineyard practices earned it certification under the internationally sanctioned L.I.V.E (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) program, and regionally sanctioned Salmon Safe program. Link to LIVE and Salmon Safe.