Dick Erath and the First Winery in the Hills
Near Dundee, Oregon
Among the first dreamers to reach these hills was an engineer named Dick Erath. Trained partly at the University of California at Davis, Erath arrived in the Willamette Valley in nineteen sixty-eight and planted his first wine grapes the next year, working land in the Dundee Hills while many still doubted the whole idea. In the nineteen seventies he joined forces with a timber executive named Cal Knudsen to form the Knudsen Erath Winery, one of the first wineries in the Dundee Hills.
In the early days Erath and the other pioneers shared everything, equipment, advice, and the labor of harvest, because there was no established industry to lean on. They had to invent Oregon wine together. Erath became known for approachable, reliable Pinot Noir that introduced countless Americans to the grape, and his winery grew into one of the largest in the state.
He was also famous for generosity toward newcomers, freely teaching anyone who wanted to plant vines. When people list the founders of Oregon wine, Dick Erath's name always appears near the top, a man who built one of the first wineries on these slopes.
