Willamette Valley Vineyards

The force behind Willamette Valley Vineyards is founder and principal owner Jim Bernau. Jim’s over-the-top passion led to the acquisition of a plot of land south of Salem that was overgrown with blackberry bushes and Scotch broom. That was 1983, when Jim was a small-business lobbyist at the state Capitol, where he worked to create a budding Oregon wine industry. His neighbors surely thought this native Oregonian was a little wacky as they watched him clear the land with a tractor and run garden hoses to the young Vitis vinifera vines. His boots must have been permanently red from the property’s Jory soil. Eventually, in 1989, Jim produced wine with the Willamette Valley Vineyards label and demonstrated, along with other winemaking pioneers, that growing cool-climate varietals results in excellent wines of Burgundian heritage.

Jim understood that to make his dream a reality, he would need big bucks. But rather than find a few investors with deep pockets, he found thousands of investors with small pockets. He drafted a public stock offering to create a cooperative of sorts to offer Oregonians a stake in a budding winery. It worked. Today, Willamette Valley Vineyards (WVV) is a community of more than 4,500 investors, and you can be sure that many of these investors happily participate in the wine club and the many events hosted at the winery throughout the year.

Each day, thousands of cars pass along the stretch of I-5 that runs parallel to the winery. The beauty of the vineyards and the towered building on the hilltop grabs the attention of many travelers. The lucky ones have time to take exit 248 off I-5 and negotiate a couple of turns to the winery’s entrance. The tasting room offers a panoramic view from Illahee Hill toward other vineyard-covered hills to the west. The best part, however, is the complimentary wine tasting of vintage wines, and for $6, you can sample WVV reserve wines and take home a Riedel wine glass.

Chief winemaker Forrest Klaffke and his team use the fruit from four different WVV-owned vineyards (comprising more than 300 acres) to make pinot noir, pinot gris, and chardonnay. In typical Oregon fashion, Jim Bernau, his investors, and the staff of WVV focus intently on sustainable practices — all of these vineyards bear the LIVE certification and are Salmon Safe. There’s something downright comforting about the purity of the wine you drink from Willamette Valley Vineyards.