The number is big: $2.7 billion. That’s the amount of money the wine industry contributed to Oregon’s economy last year.

Now that the long-awaited report from the Oregon Wine Board has finally been released, a lot of local wine pros are doing a little dance. Many people tracking trends expected an increase since the last time the industry’s economic pulse was taken in 2005. But with the recession, inexpensive imported wines and pennywise tourists, no one guessed the figure would double.

The Oregon wine industry is providing more jobs (13,518), more wages ($382 million) and more tax and licensing revenues ($65 million a year) than ever before.

More important, it’s making money while being green. Wine grape acreage has almost doubled since 2000, which means more farmland has been preserved, more young families are nesting in Oregon and there are more opportunities growing.

The money circling the wine industry also does its own little dance. Unlike pears and most agricultural products grown under the Oregon sun and then shipped out of state, wine grapes are harvested, crushed and made into wine here. Oregon filled 21 million wine bottles last year. Almost half of those were consumed here at restaurants and wine bars, and brought home from stores and tasting rooms.

As sales of wine cases nearly doubled, the level of generosity also rose. The Oregon wine and wine grape industries gave $6.8 million last year to charities.

There is clattering right now in Salem, with officials talking about how they have made this possible. There are marketers and distributors who see themselves as the heroes for putting Oregon wine on shelves. There are even wine writers striking keyboards right now, explaining how well they've been telling Oregon’s story.

But at the end of the day, when growers return from their vineyards, when winemakers test the last barrel sample, when bottling machines are shut down and tasting room staffers turn off the lights, this very real victory should be celebrated where it started, around the kitchen table.

As much as the industry can acknowledge agencies and educators, conference organizers and tourist boards, the decision to make the grapes better and the wine of higher quality — and to share that experience — was mapped out around kitchen tables in homes surrounded by vineyards. The question by these growers, winemakers and the people who work with them was never, “Will this be hard work?”, but “What kind of hard work do we need to do to make it, individually and collectively?”

Sharing in this victory are the husband-and-wife teams, the former doctors and newly minted graduates casting their eyes on wine careers, the region’s wine pioneers and everyone else who starts the day with a long To Do list and works until their hands are dirty and their throats dry, and who, at the end the day, toast their progress with wine they helped create.

Here’s to working hard, 2.7 billion ways.