Willamette Valley AVA - 1983

Concentrated grape growing in Oregon began here, with initial plantings in 1966 and ongoing vineyard growth in the intervening forty years adding over 10,000 acres, largely because of the benign but challenging cool climate and the protection of mountains on eastern and western boundaries--and, also largely because of one grape variety, Pinot noir.  A large AVA of 3,438,000 acres (5372 square miles), it runs from Portland in the north to Eugene in the south.

To acknowledge the uniqueness of certain smaller growing hillsides inside the valley, AVA designation was requested for six areas in the northern valley, which contain sixty % of the recently planted acreage of the Willamette Valley.  All these new AVAs have minimum elevations around 200 feet; some also have a maximum of 1000 feet.