We love exploring restaurants. We were, however, otherwise occupied during our six-day visit to the Willamette Valley. The International Pinot Noir Celebration (IPNC) kept us full occupied for two and a half days (not to speak of another evening for our Pre-IPNC Dinner at Cristom Winery. And even during our time visiting wineries, we seldom […]

We enjoyed (and typically bought) one or two wines from the vast majority of Willamette Valley wineries we visited. In other words. We bought a lot of wine! A number of wineries, however, four stood out: Wineries were we enjoyed virtually every wine we tasted. Among this rare breed were: …

Yamhill-Carlton is at the northern end of the Willamette Valley, while Eola-Amity Hills is at the southern end. Given the diversity in the Valley, and among these two AVAs, one might expect the wines from each to differ greatly, as do those from the contiguous Newberg and Dundee Hills AVAs. Surprisingly, while the soil types […]

As a reminder form our previously posted Primer on Willamette Valley AVA and Vintages, the Dundee Hills AVA is generally characterized by red volcanic (Jory) soil which holds heat, resulting in deep, red cherry and plum-based fruit-focused wines with iron-based minerality and spices such as cinnamon, clove and cardamom. Of the three vintages we …