Exactly how did Oregon Wine become World Class?

Jim Maresh still remembers the exact day in 1968, when Dick Erath came up the driveway and convinced him to pull out some of his orchard to plant Pinot noir.

Jim Maresh then recalls a conversation with Dick at a celebration for Erath's twenty-fifth crush:
There were about two hundred people and we're drinking this great Oregon Pinot. Dick and I were sitting under a tree, and he said to me, "Jim, did you ever think it would be this big?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Back in 1970, we sure didn't know what we were doing."

I said, "You told me right in front of your crusher you knew what you were doing; now twenty-five years later, after I had pulled out all my orchard, you tell me different?"

And he said, "I didn't have a clue."

So, exactly how did Oregon Wine become world class?