When grapes cross state lines

Gino Cuneo puts an abundance of details on the labels of his Two Rivers wines, but don't bother looking for a state name. Rather, don't bother looking for just one.

His Two Rivers sangiovese combines fruit from Washington's Red Mountain (which will now include clones of Italian brunello, he'll announce this week) and the Del Rio vineyard in southern Oregon. Same with his Bordeaux blend. He accounts for the contents, by state, down to the last percentage point.

While state boundaries may hold currency to census takers and politicians, they don't mean much when it comes to produce. "Grapes are apolitical, especially this year," Cuneo says. "They simply don't know where we draw the lines."

Like a growing number of West Coast winemakers, Cuneo is hunting the most expressive, highest quality grapes he can find -- no matter which state grew them. He felt his wine hinged on the high acidity and dramatic fruit flavors the Northwest's wide temperature swings can provide. So when it came to grapes, the border between Oregon and Washington was just a line on a map.

"There are no border guards saying, 'No, that's merlot. You can't come across,'" says winemaker Andrew Rich.

Rich makes wine in Carlton, Ore., (next door to Cuneo, actually) yet has bottled Rhone blends from Washington, Oregon pinot noir and everything in between.

If state and federal laws are rigid when it comes to transporting wine across state boundaries, there are few such concerns with grapes, though Oregon producers often must pay a self-imposed tax on their fruit.

More than a few states want to keep close control of all the alcoholic beverages heading across their borders, including wine. Grapes have no such issues.

Fear of pests can still be an issue, though not so much at state borders. Siduri's Adam Lee of Santa Rosa, Calif., makes pinot noir from vineyards throughout California as well as from Oregon's Willamette Valley.  Though he finds it a challenge to send bins of grapes on a 13-hour, 640-mile drive down from Oregon, those logistics are often dwarfed by authorities' worries about insects like the glassy-winged sharpshooter, which has spread a vine-withering ailment known as Pierce's disease throughout California.

"We have more trouble, in some ways, bringing stuff up from Santa Barbara," Lee says.

There is cause for confusion among wine drinkers. After all, a "California wine" connotes a specific thing, even if California vineyards have produced almost every type of grape and wine style imaginable. It's even more true with Oregon wines, which have largely become synonymous with pinot noir.

No rules, just fruit
But the urge to experiment is strong, especially in the Northwest. Many small winemakers enjoy testing the boundaries of their freedom from the sort of constraints that generally govern European winemaking, where the smallest patch of terrain need be differentiated.

"This is America. We're not locked in like in France and Italy, where they've regulated themselves into these little corners," Cuneo says.

In fact, two Northwest wine appellations -- Columbia Valley and Walla Walla -- actually traverse the Oregon-Washington border. Small vineyards are a frequent sight on both sides of State Line Road outside the city of Walla Walla, Wash.

Four years ago, Seven Hills Winery moved to Walla Walla from its longtime location just a few miles south in Milton-Freewater, Ore.

The Seven Hills vineyards remain south of the state border, providing grapes to more than a dozen Washington wineries -- which means many of the best Walla Walla wines have some Oregon in them. Seven Hills Winery no longer owns its Oregon vineyards, but still uses plenty of fruit from them and even receives pinot gris grapes from southern Oregon's Melrose Vineyard, then blends them with grapes grown closer to home.

"Virtually everyone is pulling fruit across the state line to make Walla Walla wine," says Seven Hills winemaker Casey McClellan.

'Appreciate the differences'
Given their diverse palates, winemakers often enjoy fruit from multiple locations, and don't like being forced to choose a single location to stake their claim. That said, most insist they spend at least a little time where their grapes are grown in order to acquire a sense of place that they can translate into their wine.

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Kathy Joseph of Fiddlehead Cellars in Davis, Calif., splits her year between the Oregon vineyards she buys from and her new Fiddlestix vineyard and winery in the Santa Rita Hills near Santa Barbara, 350 miles south of Davis.

Joseph loved the earthiness and anise of Oregon fruit; she also loved the black cherry and white pepper of Santa Rita Hills fruit. For the past 13 years, she has decided not to choose between the two: "From my perspective, working in both places allows you to appreciate the differences of two different places."

Does it matter whether grapes cross state lines, assuming all the details are divulged on the label and all those intricate labeling requirements met? Probably not, at least not to the educated drinker who appreciates how wine regions differ. And probably no more than a sense of place matters to adventurous buyers of Chilean pinot noir or Bordeaux blends from South Africa.

After all, when Rich worked for Santa Cruz-based Bonny Doon, he found himself hunting grapes the length of California, north to Mendocino and south to Santa Barbara.

"I can reach my farthest Washington vineyard by driving three hours," says the Portland, Ore.-based Rich, "which doesnt seem that big a deal to me."

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