Willakenzie Estate

Bernard Lacroute was born in Burgundy and built a career in Silicon Valley tech. He and his then-wife Ronni spent years looking for land where Pinot Noir could be made in a style paralleling the great wines of home. In January 1991 they found a 420-acre cattle ranch outside Yamhill, cleared the poison oak and blackberry, and began planting the following year.

They named it for the ground itself. WillaKenzie is the marine sedimentary soil series that defines the Yamhill-Carlton and Ribbon Ridge AVAs — uplifted seabed of sandstone and siltstone, moderately deep, low in vigor, and unusually well suited to Pinot Noir. The name also honors the Willamette and McKenzie rivers, which appear as waves on the estate crest alongside a fleur-de-lis for Lacroute’s French heritage.

Planting was directed by Joel Myers, the same grower behind Siltstone. In 1994 a young French winemaker named Laurent Montalieu turned up, became so taken with the place that he offered to make the wine, and convinced the Lacroutes to bottle rather than sell their fruit. They commissioned one of the region’s first gravity-flow wineries, completed just in time for the 1995 vintage. That 1995 Gamay Noir was later served at a White House gala.

Around 100 acres are planted across six named vineyard neighborhoods — Kiana, Terres Basses, Triple Black Slopes, Emery, Clairière, and Aliette — with two-thirds in Pinot Noir across eleven clones. A 95-acre Dundee Hills property, Jory Hills, was added in 2000. Production is capped at 20,000 cases, and WillaKenzie was Oregon’s first LIVE-certified winery, holding certificate number 001.

The Lacroutes sold to Jackson Family Wines in 2016 when Bernard, then 73, decided to retire. Erik Kramer joined as winemaker in 2017, a former hydrogeologist with a postgraduate degree from Lincoln University in New Zealand and thirteen years at Domaine Serene and Adelsheim.

The tasting room sits on a hilltop with wide valley views and generous outdoor space.