We love visiting the Willamette Valley wine region. Whenever we go, we end up buying a lot of wine.

While we visited a number of wineries, four stood out don’t this trip: Wineries where we enjoyed virtually every wine we tasted. Among this rare breed were:

• The Four Graces. This winery, which we had heard of, but had never tasted, turned out to be one of the absolute favorites of our five days of Pinot Noir tasting. We enjoyed the 2012 Willamette Valley blend, loved the 2012 Dundee Hills Reserve, and were bowled over by the bold 2012 Yamhill Carlton with its dark fruit soft tannins and subtle spices. And at $45, it was also one of the best bargains in the valley. We shall return!
• Le Cadeau. And speaking of winners, we found another at a winery that we had wanted to try, but had not had a chance. What a wonderful line up of elegant Pinot Norirs. Among our favorites were: 2011 Aubichon Vista Hills Pinot Gris, the 2011 Aubichon Willamette Valley Pinot, the 2010 Rocheaux Pinot, and both the 2011 and 2012 Equinoxe Pinots. In other words, just about everything we tasted.
• Archery Summit. We ended up with a case during our previous visit. And despite some warnings that the winery had lost its step, our only regret is that we had to limit ourselves to a single case. So, we settled on a combination of the 2012 Vireton Pinot Gris, the 2011 and 2012 Looney Vineyard Ribbon Ridge Pinot Noirs and the 2012 Premier Cuvée.
• Willakenzie. Another of our sweepstakes winners, where we enjoyed (and bought) virtually every Pinot Noir we tasted. These were the 2012 Gisele and 2011 Jory Hills. vineyard, both of which we enjoyed and expected to buy before we tasted three others; the 2011 Kiana, Pierre Leon, and especially the premium Triple Black Slopes.

Then, there was another winery, Patricia Green, where we tasted and enjoyed so many wines (from both their current bottlings and from barrels of not-yet bottled wines) that it deserves an honorable mention. We ended up buying futures of the 2013 Dundee Hills Balcombe Vineyard Block 18, Chehalem Mountain Olenik Vineyard Wadensvil Block, Eola-Amity Hills Freedom Hill Vineyard Pommard Clone Block, Freedom Hill Vineyard Coury Clone Block, and current releases of the 2012 Dundee Hills Durante Vineyard Madrone Block, the Eola-Amity Hills Freedom Hill Pommard clone the flagship multi-vineyard Notorious.