The Mount Rushmore of Oregon Pinot Noir, According to 8 Wine Experts
While Burgundy is the ancestral home and current source of much of the most prized Pinot Noir, the grape has exploded in popularity around the world. Yet due to its fickle, fragile nature, it remains a challenging grape to grow in even the most ideal conditions, like those found in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
From relatively humble beginnings in the 1960s to a modern region boasting not just critical acclaim and commercial success but also investment and attention from many of the world’s largest wine companies, the Willamette Valley is now one of the most well-known and respected wine regions in the world — especially for its Pinot.
VinePair reached out to wine professionals and experts for their “Mount Rushmore” picks of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir: not necessarily their favorite wines to drink, but the wines that are most historically important, consequential, and iconic from the last 60 years of viticulture that helped define the region. Here’s what they said.
Chris Fladwood, director winemaking and viticulture, Soter Vineyards, Carlton, Ore.
Domaine Drouhin “Laurène” Pinot Noir: The Laurène bottling is a steady favorite for a reason. It consistently delivers that fine-tuned balance between fruit and structure that makes Oregon Pinot so compelling. Red cherry, floral lift, and warm spice lead on the nose, while the palate is round and layered, with firm but approachable tannins. There’s a quiet confidence to this wine — it doesn’t need to shout to be heard. Youthful and generous now, but it ages into something truly elegant.
Elk Cove “Roosevelt” Pinot Noir: Roosevelt is a bold expression from Elk Cove, and it wears its hillside origins well. I never hesitate if this wine is on the table. Plush red fruit — raspberry, cranberry, even a little blood orange — melds with savory notes of tea leaf and spice. There’s muscle here, no doubt, but it’s all in proportion. Adam Campbell’s touch brings refinement without softening the wine’s edge. It’s expressive, well built, and has that rare combination of power and polish.
Bergström “Bergström Vineyard” Pinot Noir: This wine shows what happens when precision meets place. From their home vineyard in the Dundee Hills, Bergström crafts a Pinot that’s both grounded and refined. The Bergström Vineyard bottling offers bright red fruit, savory depth, and an elegant tannin profile. But there’s no heaviness — just precision and intent. The volcanic soils of Dundee come through clearly, lending lift and minerality. This is a benchmark wine, one that rewards time in the glass (and in the cellar).
Bethel Heights “Casteel” Pinot Noir: Bethel Heights is one of the clearest voices in the Eola-Amity Hills. The Casteel Pinot opens with lifted aromatics — violet, plum skin, and a hint of wild herb — before settling into a palate that’s focused and quietly powerful. Winemaker Ben Casteel has a knack for letting the vineyard lead, and the result is a wine that feels honest and complete. It’s graceful without being delicate, and complex without overcomplicating. Always a standout.
Brittany McCarthy, national beverage manager, Paradies Lagardère dining division
1978 Adelsheim Pinot Noir: Adelsheim’s 1978 Pinot Noir was a game-changer for the Willamette Valley, showing the world that this region could produce exceptional wines. It played a key role in establishing the valley’s reputation for top-tier Pinot Noir and proved that Oregon had the potential to make wines that could compete with the best in the world.
Domaine Serene “Evenstad Reserve” Pinot Noir: Domaine Serene’s “Evenstad Reserve” has become a standard for Oregon Pinot Noir. First released in the early 2000s, it played a major role in boosting the Willamette Valley’s global reputation, proving that the region could produce age-worthy wines on par with the finest from Burgundy.
1991 King Estate Pinot Noir: King Estate’s 1991 Pinot Noir was one of the first big successes from the biodynamic-focused winery. Its early acclaim helped shine a spotlight on the potential of Oregon’s southern wine regions and showed that even larger wineries could produce premium Pinot Noir, helping to push the limits of the state’s wine industry.
1992 Cristom Vineyards “Eileen” Pinot Noir: Cristom’s “Eileen” Pinot Noir, released in 1992, quickly became a benchmark that helped raise the profile of Oregon’s single-vineyard wines. With its perfect balance and complexity, it proved that the Willamette Valley could produce Pinot Noirs with exceptional depth, earning a loyal following among both collectors and critics alike.
Rick Eplawy, executive leader of adult beverage merchandising, Whole Foods Market
The Eyrie Vineyards 1975 “South Block Reserve” Pinot Noir: This wine, crafted by David Lett, placed in the top 10 at the 1979 Gault-Millau Wine Olympics in Paris, outshining many Burgundian Pinots in a blind tasting. Its success, followed by a close second-place finish in a 1980 rematch organized by Robert Drouhin, put Oregon — and specifically the Willamette Valley — on the global wine map as a serious Pinot Noir region. Lett’s pioneering efforts demonstrated that the valley’s cool climate and soils could rival Burgundy, inspiring a wave of winemakers to invest in the region.
Tualatin Estate 1980 Pinot Noir: Produced by Bill Fuller and Bill Malkmus, this wine won “Double Gold” and “Best in Show” at the 1984 International Wine Competition in London, a groundbreaking achievement for Oregon. Its success helped catalyze the creation of Oregon’s strict labeling laws, which require at least 90 percent of a varietal in the bottle (compared to the national 75 percent), setting a high standard for quality and authenticity that bolstered the state’s reputation and influenced industry practices nationwide.
Domaine Drouhin 1988 Pinot Noir: When the renowned Burgundian Drouhin family established Domaine Drouhin Oregon in 1987 and released their first vintage in 1988, it marked a pivotal moment of international validation for Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. Their investment bridged Old World expertise with New World potential, elevating the region’s prestige and attracting further attention from global wine communities, while their elegant, terroir-driven style set a benchmark for Oregon producers.
Underwood Canned Pinot Noir (Union Wine Company): Introduced by Union Wine Company in 2013, Underwood Canned Pinot Noir revolutionized wine accessibility by packaging high-quality Willamette Valley Pinot Noir in portable, eco-friendly cans. Sourcing grapes from across Oregon, it challenged traditional wine culture’s pretensions, making Pinot Noir an approachable, everyday drink and sparking a broader canned wine trend that reshaped consumer habits and expanded Oregon’s market reach. The Underwood Canned Pinot Noir has been on shelf at Whole Foods Market since inception and continues to lead the category today.
Cara De Lavallade, wine director, Cataloochee Ranch, Maggie Valley, N.C.
Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir: Drouhin was the first major wine producer in Burgundy to invest in Willamette Valley. They paved the way for the French to become involved in Oregon and legitimized Willamette as a world-class Pinot-producing region. Today producers like Lingua Franca, Résonance, and Nicolas-Jay carry on the tradition.
The Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Noir: You can’t talk about Oregon wine history without discussing the Letts and Eyrie. They were some of the first to plant Pinot and Chardonnay in Oregon and the first to plant Pinot Gris in the U.S. The wines have always carried a balance of power and grace. They were also among the first to plant Trousseau and create something special with it. They basically kickstarted the Oregon wine industry and set a standard for environmental sustainability and collaboration, driving the culture that makes the Willamette Valley so unique.
Limited Addition Constant Crush Pinot Noir: What Bree and Chad Stock are doing with Limited Addition Wines is groundbreaking in many ways for Willamette Valley. By focusing on diversity in grape varietals and pushing the limits of what can be grown and produced in the region, they are laying a path for what can and will be done in Willamette in the future. As the climate continues to change and consumer preferences evolve, it’s important that winemakers like Bree and Chad think outside the box and have the courage to work with grapes other than Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Limited Addition produces unusual-for-Oregon grapes like Mencia, Chenin Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Blaufränkisch, and Arneis.
Hope Well Pinot Noir: Winemaker Mimi Casteel is currently creating Oregon wine history with her work in vineyards with soil health and regenerative farming. Growing up in her parents’ winery, Bethel Heights, she has been surrounded by farming and winemaking her entire life. Though the Willamette Valley has always been on the forefront of sustainability in the vineyard, Casteel is leading the way towards a greater understanding of soil health and builds advocacy for intentional, sustainable farming practices. Her research on this topic has influenced winegrowers not just in Oregon, but around the world.
Ben Roan, wine director, Le Pigeon, Portland, Ore.
The Eyrie Vineyards “Original Vines Reserve” Pinot Noir: The Willamette Valley would not be what it is today without the pioneering work of David Lett. Eyrie was the first-ish producer to plant Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley (I think Charles Coury at what is now David Hill may have beaten him by a year), but in the coming decades Eyrie produced such captivating wines that the world began to take notice of the Willamette Valley. The Lett family also fostered relationships with producers in Burgundy and elsewhere in the world, which fostered a wonderful exchange of ideas, viticulture techniques, and winemaking information.
Knudsen Vineyards “Dundee Hills Reserve” Pinot Noir: As a winery, Knudsen isn’t really a household name, even in Oregon. But when one looks at the history and influence of fruit, it becomes clear that the family had a huge part in building up the Willamette Valley as a young wine region. The Knudsen family planted 30 acres in 1971 in what is now the Dundee Hills and by 1975 they had 60 acres under vine, which made them the largest Oregon winery at the time. This led to a partnership with Dick Erath in which Knudsen-Erath was formed. This partnership lasted for about 13 years until Dick Erath bought out the Knudsen family. Then they began selling fruit to winemaker Rollin Soles at Argyle. Argyle makes a lot of wine and is now owned by some corporation, but they were the first producer to focus on quality, Champagne-method sparkling wine in Oregon. Fruit from the Knudsens was instrumental in helping create an entirely new category of Oregon wine.
Cristom Vineyards “Mt. Jefferson Cuvée” Pinot Noir: Wine & Spirits Magazine conducts an annual poll of restaurant wine buyers and sommeliers to get stats on which regions/grapes/producers are selling in various markets. They publish an aggregate of the results in a special issue of the magazine. In 2018, I was so surprised to read that Cristom’s Mt. Jefferson Cuvée, which is a mix of some estate fruit and some purchased fruit from the Eola-Amity Hills, was the No. 1-selling Pinot Noir for the restaurants that chose to participate in the survey. This survey is not a true statistic of the top-selling Pinot in all restaurants in the country but the participants in the survey were some of the best restaurants throughout the country. The average price on a restaurant wine list for the Mt. Jefferson was $66. At the time, Steve Doerner was the winemaker at Cristom and he is one of the most respected winemakers in the state. Cristom is a small family-owned winery and the Mt. Jeff has always delivered incredible price-to-quality ratio. The wine is just so delicious and so affordable that it undoubtedly turned countless people’s attention toward the Willamette Valley as a whole. Wine is meant to be enjoyed with a meal and when people are at a restaurant there are far fewer distractions from what is on the plate and in the glass.
Evening Land “Seven Springs Vineyard La Source” Pinot Noir: Evening Land is a winery with multiple phases in its history. The vineyard that Evening Land owns is called Seven Springs .in the Eola-Amity Hills. It was planted in 1984 by Al MacDonald and they always sold some portion of the fruit to other great producers. At some point in the ‘90s, the vineyard was split in half. Some bottlings were labeled as Anden and some as Seven Springs. In 2007, Mark Tarlov had a vision and he and his partners purchased and reunited the vineyard and brought on Dominique Lafon (from Meursault) as a consulting winemaker. Not only did this serve as an incubator where many talented and now established winemakers worked, it was significant in that it was the first time that a Burgundian producer had really taken interest in the Willamette Valley in a meaningful way. In the last decade there has been a ton of French expansion in the valley, which has really helped to ratify and establish it as a world-class wine-growing region.
Ashleigh McFadden, sommelier, Nàdair, Atlanta
The Eyrie Vineyards Pinot Noir: Founded in 1965, Eyrie has helped define Oregonian wine and refine the American palate. A gentle touch in the vineyard and winery, Eyrie has been organic and sustainable since its inception. With a focus on the grape, Eyrie Pinot Noirs are a true embodiment of the varietal.
Bethel Heights Estate Pinot Noir: Bethel Heights expressions reveal a deep reverence for the land they inhabit. They are one of the first vineyards in Oregon to be both Salmon Safe and LIVE certified. Their ability to produce own-rooted Pinot Noir with finesse is a reflection of this commitment.
Erath Vineyards Pinot Noir: As a pioneer of Oregonian wines, Erath helped set the standard of light, delicate, and fruit-forward Pinot Noirs in the region. They produced the first commercial wine in Dundee Hills in 1972 with only 216 cases. Their ability to blend discipline and art influenced many.
Adelsheim Vineyards Pinot Noir: Adelsheim is dedicated to creating benchmark Pinot Noirs. They focus on making wines that highlight the varying terroirs throughout their vineyards. And their work fostering education and equity throughout the region shapes policy and young winemakers alike.
Jason Lett, winemaker, The Eyrie Vineyards
Domaine Drouhin 1988 Pinot Noir: This inaugural vintage from Drouhin marked both a culmination and a beginning. Véronique Drouhin came to Oregon in 1986 to work as a stagiaire with Eyrie, Adelsheim, and Bethel Heights. The Drouhin family’s curiosity about Oregon viticulture actually sprung from father Robert Drouhin’s staging of a tasting in Beaune in 1980. In that tasting, New World wines (notably our 75 South Block) placed in the upper ranks with some great vintages of Drouhin Burgundies. Seven years later, while keynoting the International Pinot Noir Celebration in McMinnville in 1987, Robert (with the help of Joel Myers, David Lett, and David Adelsheim) located a prime piece of vineyard land and culminated the family curiosity by purchasing it. It was the first investment in vineyard land outside of Burgundy by a Burgundian domain. It cemented years of cultural exchange between Oregon and Burgundy (notably with the earlier introduction of the Dijon clones of Pinot Noir in 1983).
With Veronique guiding the winemaking, the first vintage was produced at the Veritas Vineyards winery from fruit sourced around the valley. It signaled the beginning of international recognition of the quality of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir by our fellow producers from abroad, with Véronique and her family becoming wonderful neighbors for all of us, quickly adopting the collaborative spirit of our region.
1983 Knudsen Erath Vintage Select Yamhill County
1983 Yamhill Valley Vineyards Pinot Noir
1983 Adelsheim Pinot Noir
Zach Geballe, writer, co-host “The VinePair Podcast”
As always, the experts here have picked a great and representative group of wineries and individual bottlings, but here are four more that deserve to be discussed among the icons of the Willamette Valley.
Ken Wright Cellars “Shea Vineyard” Pinot Noir: Ken and Karen Wright were pioneers in the Willamette Valley, both by being the first to use acreage contracts with growers (where growers were paid for the amount of land being used, not the yield), in using a sorting line, and in single-vineyard bottlings, including this expression from within the Yamhill-Carlton AVA.
Cooper Mountain “Old Vines” Pinot Noir: Bob and Corrine Gross first planted vines in 1978, later starting the wine label and becoming some of the first growers and producers in the Willamette Valley to embrace biodynamic farming. This site, in the northern part of the valley, produces ethereal Pinot Noir that nonetheless has a kind of gravity to it that comes from these nearly 50-year-old vines.
Brick House “Les Dijonnais” Pinot Noir: Another relatively early adopter of biodynamic practices, Brick House has long produced some of the definitive wines from the Ribbon Ridge AVA, including this bottling, a barrel selection from exclusive Dijon clones of Pinot Noir. Here, the distinct marine sedimentary soils of Ribbon Ridge give this wine a brightness and freshness that defines the AVA, while the intensity and long aging potential comes from the spectacular fruit quality and meticulous farming.
Antica Terra “Botanica” Pinot Noir: While much of the rest of the Willamette Valley has sought to differentiate their wines based on vineyard designations, AVAs, and clones, iconic winemaker Maggie Harrison brought the winemaking style she learned at Sine Qua Non to bear on the valley, crafting wines at the blending table with a specific profile in mind. While few have been able to replicate her success, the Antica Terra wines show the incredible raw potential of the Willamette Valley, as well as its growing allure to winemakers from around the world.
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