Oregon’s successful and widely recognized wine industry can be traced to this place, where Richard Sommer first planted Pinot noir grapes in 1961. The climates and topographies of the Umpqua and Willamette valleys are much like those of European wine regions, but many winemakers of the 1960s believed it was impossible to grow fine wines in Oregon. Sommer recognized the significance of sharing latitude with European winemaking regions, including Burgundy, and took a chance with his HillCrest Vineyard, Oregon’s first winery to plant and bottle Pinot noir for commercial sale. His gamble paid off, and Oregon’s Pinot noir wines have been internationally recognized since the late 1970s, when a vintage 1975 bottle from Eyrie Vineyards won first place at a competition in Paris. The emerging wine industry also benefited from Oregon’s political and social climate when the state passed groundbreaking land-use legislation in 1973 requiring all cities and counties to create comprehensive plans protecting agricultural land from development. Richard Sommer co-founded the Oregon Winegrowers Association in 1965, and the association became the Oregon Wine Board, continuing to support the industry through marketing, research, and education initiatives. In the late 1970s, winegrowers also imposed strict labeling restrictions on themselves and assessed a self-tax that supported important research efforts.