By AVA
American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs, are legally designated regions that have been found to possess unique geographical and climate characteristics with direct implications for wine quality and typicity. In other words, they’re places that produce special wines. The Willamette Valley AVA is one such place—and at nearly 3.5 million acres, it’s one of the largest in the United States.
Our winemakers love Pinot noir because it’s such an expressive grape: it insists on telling you where it’s from. Variations in the Willamette Valley from site to site, such as elevation changes or the presence of nearby forests or rivers, can contribute to differences in the glass that even novice wine lovers can perceive. General attributes that make the Willamette Valley suitable for cooler-climate grape growing include the protection afforded by the Cascade Mountains to the east, Coast Range mountains to the west and a series of lower hill chains to the extreme north of the valley. Almost all grape growing is done on hillsides, avoiding deeply fertile alluvial soils where the Willamette Valley’s other important crops, like hazelnuts, thrive.
If you look at a map of the Willamette Valley, you’ll see apparent “families” of vineyards, where “nested” AVAs have already been designated within the larger AVA’s borders. In 2002, vineyard and winery owners collaborated to delineate and submit to the TTB petitions to divide much of the northern part of the large Willamette Valley AVA into six of these more specific AVAs: Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Eola-Amity Hills, McMinnville, Ribbon Ridge, and Yamhill-Carlton. Like everything in nature, it’s a work in progress: the Van Duzer Corridor AVA went into effect in January 2019, and the Tualatin Hills and Laurelwood District AVAs were approved in June 2020.
Chehalem Mountains
The Chehalem Mountains AVA is a single uplifted landmass southwest of Portland...
Dundee Hills
The first grapes in the Willamette Valley were planted in the Dundee Hills, and...
Eola-Amity Hills
Adjacent to the Willamette River, these hills are composed of the Eola Hills,...
Laurelwood District
The Laurelwood District AVA, one of Oregon's newest AVAs, was approved in...
McMinnville
The McMinnville AVA of nearly 40,500 acres sits due west of Yamhill...
Ribbon Ridge
Ribbon Ridge is a very regular spur of ocean sediment uplift off the northwest...
Tualatin Hills
This 15-mile slice is tucked into the northwesternmost corner of the Willamette...
Van Duzer Corridor
The Van Duzer Corridor is an anomaly in the Coast Range through which oceanic...
Willamette Valley
A large AVA of 3,438,000 acres (5372 square miles), running from Portland in the...
Yamhill-Carlton
North of McMinnville, the foothills of the Coast Range create an AVA of nearly...