About Yamhill Valley Vineyards
Yamhill Valley Vineyards began with a newspaper advertisement. On a wet August weekend in the early 1980s, Denis Burger and Elaine McCall were looking for land to plant and learn on when they spotted a classified reading "Land For Sale, Good For Grapes." The rain followed them the whole way until they turned off Highway 18 onto Oldsville Road, where a rainbow appeared over the hillside ahead and the weather cleared. The site was larger than they had planned for, but the views, the hillsides and a small wildflower-banked stream settled it.
Founded in 1983 with David Hinrichs alongside them, it is the oldest winery in the McMinnville AVA. The first wine came before the winery did: Denis bought Pinot Noir from a neighbouring grower, Hyland, and made it at Sokol Blosser with the help of winemaker Bob McRitchie. He took that 1983 Pinot Noir to the Steamboat conference, where he met Stephen Cary, who entered it in the 1985 Burgundy Challenge at the International Wine Center in New York. It tied for first, against Burgundy.
The family has added adjacent parcels over the years and now farms about 150 acres in the Coast Range foothills, with every wine made entirely from estate fruit. Since 2019 the vineyard has been dry-farmed, which is practical only because the vines are old and deeply established, and it saves thousands of gallons of water a season while pushing the roots to work harder.
The second generation runs it now: Jenny Burger, Denis's daughter, is general manager, and Ariel Eberle took over as head winemaker in 2016 after a decade learning from founding winemaker Stephen Cary. Wine Press Northwest named Yamhill Valley its Oregon Winery of the Year in 2019. The range is Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling and rose, poured with charcuterie on a deck shaded by oaks.
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