On August 24-25, taste new releases with Tualatin Estate Vineyard Founder and Winemaker who’s been making wine for over half a century
FOREST GROVE, Ore., August 21, 2024 — Oregon winemaker Bill Fuller will be celebrated with an anniversary party on August 24 and 25, 2024 at Tualatin Estate Vineyards. The Vintage 49 Release Party pays homage to Fuller’s contributions to Oregon’s wine history as one of the original winemakers in Oregon and his unparalleled work ethic that has him still working in the cellar a few days a month at 87 years old.
“Bill is one of the founding pioneers of our industry and the only one still making wine,” said Willamette Valley Vineyards’ Founder and CEO Jim Bernau. “It’s an honor learning from him, and we love to see him in the cellar even today.”
Bernau noted that Fuller planted Tualatin Estate’s self-rooted vines 51 years ago “so he knows how to care for them to produce the highest quality wine possible.”
“When Bill first chose his site over 50 years ago, his top priority was a high-quality, winegrowing property, even though it was miles away from McMinnville and Newberg — places where other vineyards were being planted,” Bernau said. “The coastal range looms over this vineyard and protects Bill’s vines from the cool, wet weather coming in from the Pacific Ocean in the fall.”
When Fuller merged his winery business with Willamette Valley Vineyards, it was the most important development in producing high-quality wine in the history of Willamette Valley Vineyards, Bernau said.
“Getting those old self-rooted vines was Willamette Valley Vineyards’ first big break,” he said.
Born in the agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, Fuller loved science, especially chemistry, graduating with a mathematics degree and a physics minor. His education caught the eye of the head winemaker at the Italian Swiss Colony in Asti, Sonoma County, at the time the leading wine producer in California. The winemaker hired Fuller for his chemistry background, which began as temporary work during harvest in the lab, and led to permanent work on the bottling line for him at age 22 on the night shift. Fellow wine legend David Adelsheim hosts a fun oral history with Fuller on Adelsheim’s website.
After two years, Fuller headed back to school at UC Davis, where his time overlapped with Charles Coury and David Lett. Having caught the wine bug, he worked harvest at Louis Martini on weekends in the mid-1960s, and he was later promoted to winemaker, where he worked for nine years.
A fateful trip evaluating vineyard sites in Oregon led him and Bill Malkmus to become partners in a 120-acre site northwest of Forest Grove in 1972, which they named Tualatin Vineyards. Bill and his family moved to Oregon that summer. The following year, he remodeled the house and converted the barn into a winery in time for their first vintage, using Washington grapes. Tualatin Estate Vineyard is one of the oldest and most respected vineyard sites in the Willamette Valley and is the only vineyard to have won the Best of Show for both the red and white categories at the London International Wine Competition in the same year. Bill merged his winery business with Jim Bernau’s Willamette Valley Vineyards in 1997, becoming an owner of Willamette with thirteen estate vineyards and two more in the making.
Tualatin Estate is planted with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewürztraminer, Muscat and Pinot Blanc. The new plantings are spaced at twice the plant density of the original vineyard to improve vineyard ripening potential by limiting the crop on a per-plant basis. This often yields more consistency in wines that are also more structurally complex due to the clonal diversity.
Fuller’s 49th Vintage will be celebrated Saturday, August 24 from 2 to 5 pm, and Sunday, August 25 from 11 am to 2 pm at Tualatin Estate Tasting Room, 10850 NW Seavey Road in Forest Grove. The celebration will feature the release of Fuller’s newest vintage of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. These small-lot wines are made with Fuller’s traditional winemaking techniques from his favorite vineyard blocks.
Tickets are $75 for Owners, $80 for Club Members, $70 for Owners who are Club Members, and $100 for the general public. Admission includes a signed bottle of Vintage 49 Pinot Noir by Bill Fuller. Attendees will also receive a $10 credit to be used on a bottle of wine at the event. A $35 ticket without the wine included is also available.
Tickets are available through Tock at https://www.exploretock.com/wvvtualatin
About Willamette Valley Vineyards
Founded in 1983 by CEO Jim Bernau with the dream of creating world-class Pinot Noir while serving as stewards of the land, Willamette Valley Vineyards has grown from a bold idea into one of the region’s leading wineries, earning the title “One of America’s Great Pinot Noir Producers” from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. In addition, all the vineyards have been certified sustainable through LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) and Salmon-Safe programs. With 1,000 acres under vine, Willamette farms its Estate winery in the Salem Hills, sparkling winery Domaine Willamette in the Dundee Hills, pioneering Tualatin Estate Vineyard near Forest Grove and Elton Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. The winery has expanded recently to include ten tasting rooms in Oregon, Washington and California — growth made possible by the stock ownership of many wine enthusiasts.
