Gregory V. Jones, Ph.D., Wine Climatologist is the winegrower at Abacela Vineyard and Winery in the Umpqua Valley, Oregon. Greg has held research and teaching positions at the University of Virginia, Southern Oregon University, Linfield University, and has an affiliate faculty position at the University of Adelaide. For over twenty-five years, his research has firmly linked weather and climate with grapevine growth, fruit chemistry, and wine characteristics in regions all around the globe. His work was also among the first to tie climate change to fundamental biological phenomena in vines and to the resulting influences on productivity and quality. His groundbreaking work has informed and influenced the wine industry across the globe.
Dr. Jones also has lifelong ties to the Oregon wine community, most closely with his family winery and vineyards at Abacela, where Greg was appointed CEO in August 2021. To find out more about his research and access videos, podcasts, and publications, visit www.climateofwine.com
Media Inquiries: greg@abacela.com | https://www.abacela.com
What’s the ONE THING most unique, authentic, & memorable about your brand?
In the 1980s, my father started his journey into wine largely due to something that was missing in the United States … Tempranillo. Having enjoyed Tempranillo wines from Spain and seeing the value for the quality coming from Ribera del Duero, Rioja, and other regions, he started looking for wines made from the variety grown in the United States. He was astonished to find none. At the time, there may have been only a few hundred acres of Tempranillo in the United States. Yet, thousands upon thousands of acres of Cabernet Sauvignon and other varieties were planted in the state. While the story of why is for another time, my father’s focus was to find a place that could grow world-class Tempranillo in the United States.
As my father started his pursuit to learn more about growing grapes and especially what made the finest Tempranillos in Spain (Ribera del Duero and Rioja) I was starting my Ph.D. studies in agriculture and climate (see last question below). My father’s questions during my Ph.D. work in Bordeaux helped me fine-tune my research, while my research helped inform my father’s pursuit of the best place to grow Tempranillo in the western United States.
After looking across many states and locations, we settled upon the Umpqua Valley of Oregon as having the ideal climate to grow Tempranillo. The region had wet and cool winters, little spring or fall frost risk, a dry summer, a nearly perfect seven-month growing season, and a truncation of the season to cool nights for ideal ripening. During a visit in 1992, we went to the Greatest of the Grape, the longest-running wine event in Oregon. Tasting the wines, we found Merlot that stood out, which made my father say, “If this can be done, I think we can do Tempranillo in this region.” Within three years, Abacela was established and growing Tempranillo and many other varieties never grown in the state previously.
Describe how and what you’d do with your winemaking career or winery business if you were not constrained.
I’d write at least one book.
What is the One Wine most emblematic of your brand and/or winemaking style? Tell us its story.
Tempranillo is our flagship. However, I must add that our range of Spanish and Portuguese varieties are each very good, especially our Albariño. They are our marque varieties.
Tempranillo was first planted at Abacela in 1995, the first planting of this variety in Oregon and the PNW. Over the years we have worked to identify the best clones, rootstocks, vine management, and winemaking methods to bring out the best from our terroir. We currently have just under 25 acres of Tempranillo, with seven clones on four rootstocks. We produce four distinct styles of Tempranillo, ranging from fresh, fruit-forward to highly concentrated, age-worthy reserve wines, similar to the framework that producers in the famous regions of Spain do.
Similar to the Tempranillo story, Albariño has a limited history in the United States. In 1990 there were no documented commercial plantings of Albariño anywhere in the United States. In the mid-1990s some suitcase plant material made it way to California and my father got wind of it. Two producers were able to get some cuttings and have them grafted to rootstock, one was Havens Winery in Napa (1997) and Abacela (1999). Havens first vintage produced a small amount of Albariño, reported to be 15 cases, but the wine could not be labeled as Albariño because the BATF did not recognize the name. A year later Havens produced the first commercial bottling using the Albariño name. Abacela produced its first Albariño wines in 2001, the first in Oregon and the PNW. We are fairly confident that both the original source of the suitcase plant material and Havens both pulled out their Albariño, leaving Abacela’s vines as possibly the oldest in the United States. Read my review of this reserve Tempranillo here.
Bonus Question: What’s the one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
I am now in my fourth career.
Career 1: I started in restaurants in high school, working up from dishwasher to head chef by 18. Though I didn’t finish high school, I found a talent for blending ingredients and managing kitchens.
Career 2: After years running multimillion-dollar restaurants, I burned out and co-founded a golf business selling and repairing equipment, including early custom clubs on the Home Shopping Network. We grew to multiple locations before the 1987–88 financial downturn led me to pursue further education at 29.
Career 3: I earned a GED, then a B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, shifting from hydrology to climatology to study climate’s impact on agriculture. Conversations with my father led me to specialize in wine climatology—a largely unexplored field at the time. My research, including a dissertation on Bordeaux, became the foundation of a nearly 30-year career as a professor and wine climatologist, and contributed to the development of our family winery, Abacela.
Career 4: In 2021, I left academia to become CEO of Abacela as my father retired. I now combine my backgrounds in food, retail, and climate research to lead the winery and continue its pioneering work—occasionally serving as the maintenance man as well.