Oregon's wine industry began its modern chapter in the 1960s, when pioneers planted Pinot Noir vines that conventional wisdom said couldn't thrive here. The cool, wet climate seemed wrong for winemaking, but visionaries recognized that conditions resembled Burgundy - and that similar grapes might produce similar results. They were right, and the wines that emerged from the Willamette Valley earned recognition that transformed the region.

Newberg anchors the northern end of this wine country. Tasting rooms line the main street and dot the surrounding hills, offering samples of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and the other varieties that thrive in the valley's terroir. The experience ranges from casual - walk-in tastings at downtown storefronts - to elaborate, with estate visits and food pairings at vineyards visible from town.

The valley's agricultural history predates its wine fame. Cash crops of berries and stone fruits fed earlier generations; hazelnut orchards still cover many hillsides, Oregon producing 99% of the American hazelnut crop. The transition to wine grapes happened gradually, as farmers recognized that vineyards could produce higher returns from the same acreage.

Today wine dominates, but the valley retains its farming character. U-pick operations let visitors harvest berries in season. Farm stands sell produce direct to consumers. The restaurants that have opened to serve wine tourists emphasize local, seasonal ingredients, creating a food culture that complements the wines. It's agriculture transformed but not abandoned, the working landscape still visible beneath the boutique veneer.

Newberg's old town offers something rare in the Willamette Valley - a concentrated, walkable district where visitors can spend a day without driving between destinations. Tasting rooms, restaurants, and shops cluster along First Street and its cross streets, housed in historic buildings that predate the wine boom. The scale is intimate, the pace relaxed, the focus on quality over quantity.

The downtown has attracted the kind of elevated dining that wine country demands - farm-to-table restaurants featuring local ingredients, wine bars pouring selections from dozens of nearby vineyards, bakeries and coffee shops that would fit in Portland's foodie neighborhoods. It's become a destination in its own right, not just a waystation on the route to vineyard visits.

Six miles southeast, across the Willamette River, lies Champoeg - now a state park preserving the site of a ghost town that played an outsized role in Pacific Northwest history. In 1843, settlers gathered here to establish the first provisional government of Oregon Country, and the same year launched the land rush that would draw thousands of homesteaders along the Oregon Trail.

The town thrived for decades, hosting a Hudson's Bay Company granary, steamboat landings, and ferry crossings. Then the flood of December 1861 destroyed it, sweeping away the buildings and the population that had filled them. Today the state park interprets this history, offering trails through the site where a town once stood and Oregon's future was decided by a close vote of pioneer farmers.