California: We are the wine champions, my friends. We will fight you and win! Our wines are better tasting! Our wines are better known! We produce more wine in our state than you could even fantasize about…

Northern Oregon: Wrong again, California dreamer. We’ve got the market cornered on Pinot Noir, lush, full-bodied, Willamette Valley…

Southern Oregon [smirking ironically]: You’re both only telling a fraction of the story! Our small-scale growing, attention to detail, often stealth-organic wines may be the underdogs but we’re making up in quality and palatability for what we lack in reputation. We’re small, sure, but I’d think twice before you put your money on the larger contenders. Anyone who takes the time to go wine tasting in southern Oregon will tell you that some of our wines are delectable. Move over boys, we’re here to stay!

If California wines are the well-heeled establishment, northern Oregon wines the tie-dyed younger sibling, then southern Oregon is the hip new kid on the block.

Southern Oregon wines may be dismissed by the less knowledgeable oenologist but in the past decade or so they have been taking off. The microclimates in southern Oregon mean that a diversity of grapes can be grown here and our region’s wines (I live in Ashland) have begun to garner national recognition.

Industry secret: Just as the backbone of the famous French burgundies is provided by Italian grapes, some of the best northern Oregon wines are being made with grapes grown in … southern Oregon.

Michael Donovan is the managing director of RoxyAnn Winery in Medford and board member of the Southern Oregon Wine Association.

“This is the fastest grape-growing region in Oregon,” says Donovan, a big man with graying brown hair and small wire-rim glasses. At RoxyAnn’s expansive tasting room for $5 customers can sample seven different wines, or for $3 three wines, and also buy local produce, chocolate, cheeses, and tacky oenophile gifts, like wine cork cages in the shape of barrels. A sample wine, usually Pinot Gris, is complimentary. Each week the tasting room features a different local cheese paired with fruit for $12.95 for customers who want to linger.

Donovan’s enthusiasm is contagious. The numbers are encouraging and there’s an excitement in the industry that’s as palpable as the wine is palatable.

Come back to read about wine trends (and a new kind of cork) spearheaded by a couple of southern Oregon growers!

Are you a wine enthusiast or a sure-I’ll-take-a-glass-of-whatever-you’re-pouring type? What southern Oregon wines have you tried? Do you think we’re the next Napa? The next Walla Walla? Or are you betting your money on California?

Jennifer Margulis is an award-winning travel and culture writer who lives in Ashland, Oregon. Send your wine lifestyle story ideas to: professormargulis@gmail.com