[Noozhawk’s note: In early February, Will Henry told Noozhawk that he was about to plant the first estate vineyard for Lumen Wines, the label he co-owns and produces with Lane Tanner, and we jumped at the chance to document the process from Day One. Following is the sixth in a series about the life of a new vineyard by Noozhawk contributing writer Laurie Jervis and photographer Len Wood.]

About a half-mile down the road from Will Henry and Kali Kopley’s residence and Warner Henry Vineyard is another vineyard belonging to a neighbor, businessman Doug King, whose primary residence is in Bend, Oregon.

As Henry, Kopley and their vineyard manager, Jason Muscio of Chalky Ridge Vineyard Management, drove in and out from the newly planted Warner Henry Vineyard, they gave only passing thoughts to King’s pinot noir grape vines, visible behind a fence.

Finally, Henry recalled, “Jason asked me, ‘What is that place?'”

That place belongs to King, a pilot who is the president/CEO of Epic Aircraft of Bend. In 2008, King planted seven acres of pinot noir and chardonnay on both sides of the private road that leads to his home, and beyond, the Henry/Kopley home and Warner Henry Vineyard.

David Addamo was the original winemaker for King’s Royal Flight Vineyards, whose first vintage was in 2011, according to princeofpinot.com.

When Royal Flight Vineyards’ vines grew ripe in 2020, another local winemaker who was contracted to buy King’s pinot noir backed out, leaving the owner holding harvested fruit. That’s a grower’s nightmare.

I did the math: With seven acres that produced roughly two tons per acre, or 14 tons total, at a probable going rate of $3,000 each means a loss of about $42,000.

Will Henry looks at a nearly abandoned field full of pinot noir grapes near his fledgling vineyard. Henry is harvesting the grapes for his and other wineries. (Len Wood / Noozhawk photo)

King, Henry said, was so frustrated that he walked away, saying “enough is enough.” King didn’t spend any money to prune, water or spray his vines against powdery mildew, a fungal disease often prevalent in foggy, coastal vineyards.

While most vineyards can survive a year without irrigation, lack of anti-fungal spray can decimate a grape crop.

King’s vineyard, however, not only survived — it thrived.

Earlier this month, Henry said, he tracked down King via email; all residents of the rural road share a water system and have one another’s emails. “King gave me permission to take ALL of the fruit from the vineyard,” which borders the road in two plots, one two acres and the other five.

Left unpruned, the vines’ new shoots had grown as long as 6 to 7 feet and were laden with grape clusters, despite the lack of water — when irrigation is scarce, vines focus on reproduction (fruit) and less so on green, vegetative growth (shoots and leaves).

“The site was farmed organically — by accident — for the past year. We found tiny (grape) clusters, and tons of fruit,” Henry told us Sept. 21 when we met him at the site.

The grapes’ seeds were already brown (a general indicator of ripeness) and the berries showed optimal maturity. Lane Tanner, co-owner with Henry of Lumen Wines, had already pressed some of the grapes and was getting quality but “limited” juice, he said, possibly because the clusters were smaller and slightly dehydrated.

Will Henry holds pinot noir grapes found in a nearly abandoned vineyard near his fledgling vines. (Len Wood / Noozhawk photo)

Henry shared his loot from King’s vineyard with fellow winemakers Gavin Chanin (Chanin Wine Co.), Mike Roth (LoFi Wines) and Ernst Storm (Storm Wines). Grapes for those winemakers were handpicked during the wee morning hours last Friday.

All of the winemakers were beyond ecstatic to walk away with unexpected, high-quality fruit.

While he and the other winemakers are not paying King directly, they will compensate him in other ways, Henry said: “He is happy that he is getting any return at all, to be frank, and I gave the winemakers involved an incredible deal so that this fruit could see proper treatment from great artists.”

Chanin, who will reap “a good chunk” of the total pinot noir crop, told me that he was “thrilled” by the health and maturity of the crop, despite the hardship the vineyard suffered, and looks forward to working with the site in years to come, given its intrigue.

“The color of the pinot clusters was almost blue-black,” he said. “The clusters are tiny and intense, yet there is so much (overall) fruit.”

Harvest crews sort through the fruit from pinot noir grapes harvested about 1 a.m. last Friday from an abandoned field discovered by Will Henry. (Len Wood / Noozhawk photo)

Echoing Henry, Chanin surmised that the length of the unpruned shoots allowed for clusters to grow less densely, creating more air flow between clusters and less of a need for anti-fungal spray.

“Plants know how to take care of themselves” during a stressful growth season, Chanin said. “They’ve been growing like this (in a natural state) for tens of thousands of years.”

Henry and the other winemakers have christened their haul from King’s property as “Wild Vineyard” in a reference to a vineyard that beat the odds to survive.

“When you are a trained farmer, you learn to keep grapevines pretty,” Henry said. “This (King’s vineyard) is an extreme opposite, when things are not pretty.

“Maybe we can lean a bit more this way” and let the vineyards teach us, he added.

Coming in October: Fingers crossed for fall rains, and cover crops for 2022.

— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.

A harvest crew member harvests pinot noir grapes early Friday from an abandoned field discovered by Will Henry, near his fledgling vineyard. (Len Wood / Noozhawk photo)

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