You’ve seen the name “Naumes” around the Rogue Valley—mostly on pear packing crates. Soon, you’ll be seeing it on more and more wine labels—for both the Naumes Family Vineyards brand and on the select clients of the Naumes Crush & Fermentation operation in Medford.

One of the few 3rd-generation family farming operations in the Rogue Valley, the Naumeses are best known for their internationally and domestically distributed pears. With orchards in California, Oregon and Washington, the family also grows apples and cherries on 3,000 acres. So why wine?

“We like to grow things. And we had a lot of bare ground from taking out acres of apples. They don’t do well here and farmers don’t like bare ground,” Mike Naumes explained with a smile. “Plus, Laura had a real passion and a drive to be in the wine industry. She learned the fine points of viticulture and enology through classes at the Southern Oregon Wine Institute.”

As they walked the land with Chris Hubert of Results Partners, a vineyard development and management company, it was clear that their old orchard sites were the perfect spot to grow wine grapes. And what started in 2012 as six acres of grapes has now grown to 85 acres. The planting work is far from over, with new acres planned for the next several years, and a goal of around 200 by 2020.

Every vine in a Naumes vineyard is planted after months of labor to make sure each plant has the best growing conditions. Each is trained to grow to produce the best grapes. Many have been trained by Laura herself. She can regularly be found out in the vineyards in the early mornings trimming the dew-covered vines by hand. It’s because Laura has a passion for wine and grape growing, and also because the family believes that to best manage something, they need to understand every step of the process.

Last harvest, the Naumeses brought-in 442 tons of grapes—which equals roughly 26,500 cases! And while this would make Naumes one of the Rogue Valley’s biggest producers, they sell most of the grapes—mostly to Napa and the Willamette Valley. They are currently making 2,500 cases of Naumes Family Vineyards wines, focusing on Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Grenache and Rosé.

To ensure the quality during the grapes-to-wine process, the family built a start-of-the-art crush and fermentation facility in 2014 at one of Naumes’ former packing sites. The facility houses equipment to expertly store, process, sort, ferment and barrel around 30,000 cases of wine per year. Complimenting this processing equipment is a fully appointed wine laboratory. “Laura does everything top notch,” says winemaker Chris Graves. Chris, a graduate of UC Davis, began his career at Wente Brothers in Livermore, Calif. Before moving his family to Jacksonville and starting at Naumes in 2014, he built two successful boutique brands in Livermore Valley. He is assisted by Dustin Andries, an OSU graduate with experience around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Napa and the Willamette Valley.

In addition to making the Naumes Family Vineyard wines, the team also makes what is called “custom crush” wines for notable brands including JAXON Vineyards, Trium Wine, Upper Five Vineyard and Pebblestone Cellars. According to Pebblestone owner Dick Ellis, “We were very impressed with the investment in top-of-the-line equipment. This, coupled with the solid technical and practical background of winemaker Chris Graves, was instrumental in our decision to move our winemaking operations to their facility two years ago. We are now selling the first vintage of whites and barrel tasting the reds from the first vintage made at Naumes and are very impressed with the results. Furthermore, we have found the Naumes organization a pleasure to work with as a partner in the wine community.”

Speaking of custom crush, you should know that like Mike, Laura also grew up in a farming family in the Rogue Valley—the Earnest family. There’s a story that while at Phoenix High School, Laura was the homecoming queen. When a frost threatened, she and her date were called to the orchard to light the smudge pots. According to Laura, “That wasn’t uncommon back then. I think half the prom party left!”

The Earnests and the Naumeses were direct competitors, both growing pears and apples. Laura has done everything in the family business from fruit sales to running the packing house. Even as a young girl, Laura was moving sprinkler pipe and helping with orchard heating. While in college at Oregon State University, Laura came home every weekend to help in the orchards.

According to Mike, the only way he could get a date with her was to help her load the trucks. “I figured that since Laura and her father were beating me in the market, we needed to join forces,” Mike joked. And so they did. When Laura’s father passed away, the Naumes family bought Laura’s mother’s interest in the Earnest pear orchards, adding the orchards to the Naumes Medford pear operations.

Married now for 36 years, the Naumeses are still keeping the business in the family. The Naumes triplets, now in their late 20s, are the third generation to jump in. Joe is the IT department head, Cynthia handles online marketing and Sean works on special projects, most notably a new tasting room coming in 2019. Surrounded by 600 acres of orchards with 50 acres of grapes to come, the 1920s farm house on Suncrest Road in Talent, will embrace the farm-to-table movement and the family’s farming heritage. Stay tuned. There is much more to come from the Naumes family (hint: a distillery).

©Southern Oregon Wine Scene