Ribbon Ridge AVA wineries and tasting rooms

At 3,350 acres, Ribbon Ridge is the smallest AVA in the Willamette Valley: smaller than Dundee Hills, smaller than every sub-AVA drawn since. The federal government's own description calls it "a distinct, 3.5 mile long by 1.75-mile wide ridge" that gives the area "an 'island-like' appearance as it rises above the Chehalem Valley floor," ringed by three creeks and a ten-mile loop of road at its base.

What makes the island distinctive is how uniform the dirt is underneath it: almost entirely Willakenzie marine sediment, a rare thing for an AVA of any size to claim. The first vines went in around 1980; Beaux Frères started developing its 88-acre farm here in 1988, now 24 planted acres at roughly 400 feet, with a newer block (The Bridge Vineyard) bringing in its first harvest as recently as 2023. Brick House has been organic since it planted its first vines in 1990 and Demeter Biodynamic-certified since 2005.

Only about a third of the ridge's 3,350 acres is considered plantable; the rest is too steep, too high, or simply too rocky, which keeps the AVA small even as demand for its wine has grown well past its original 14 vineyards and 3 wineries.

That scarcity is part of the draw: there's only so much Ribbon Ridge to go around. The wineries below are working a genuinely small, genuinely uniform patch of the Willamette Valley. It stands on its own terms, not as a footnote to Chehalem Mountains, the larger AVA that surrounds it.