On the Ridge of Greatness

By Annelise Kelly In 1980, Harry Peterson-Nedry bought land on a narrow, fog-prone ridge running north to south on the outskirts of Newberg. His contemporaries were skeptical and considered it to be too far west, too deep in the Coast Range shadow and too high in elevation to ripen grapes reliably. But Peterson-Nedry forged ahead and planted. Twenty-five years later, on July 1, 2005, that ridge became an official American Viticultural Area, or AVA. It’s Oregon’s smallest at 3,350 acres, and by nearly any measure, one of its most distinguished. Today, the Ribbon Ridge AVA celebrates its 21st anniversary. Let’s reflect on what a small community of farmers, winemakers and true believers built on a patch of ancient ocean floor in the Northern Willamette Valley. RIBBON RIDGE ORIGINS Ribbon Ridge is an island-like formation rising 683 feet above the Chehalem Valley floor, bounded on all sides by creek valleys. Colby Carter, an early settler from Missouri, named the ridge in

by Hilary Berg · source ↗