King’s Ridge

Kings Ridge is where Union Wine Company began. When the label — originally developed at Rex Hill, where founder Ryan Harms had worked — was slated to be retired in 2005, Harms acquired the brand along with its inventory and distribution and built his new company around it. Two decades later, Kings Ridge remains the purest expression of Union’s founding idea: that the vibrant complexity of Oregon’s Willamette Valley belongs on every table, not just special-occasion ones.

Where its sibling Underwood represents all of Oregon’s growing regions, Kings Ridge stays home in the Willamette Valley, drawing on estate fruit and trusted grower partners across the valley’s sub-AVAs. The recent Pinot Noir was sourced predominantly from Crowe Hill, Union’s estate vineyard in the Van Duzer Corridor, rounded out by sites spanning nearly every corner of the valley; the Pinot Gris comes from two longtime growers on the valley’s eastern side; and an inaugural Chardonnay blends four vineyards, from Palestine Hill in the south to Witness Tree in the Eola-Amity Hills, part barrel-fermented and part raised in stainless steel to keep the aromatics bright.

The wines are produced at Union’s LIVE-certified winery in Tualatin under Director of Winemaking Meredith McGough and her women-led team, with the same detail-obsessed, pretension-free approach that runs through the whole company. Union’s “industrial château” model — craft winemaking married to lean operations — is precisely what allows Kings Ridge to deliver genuine Willamette Valley Pinot Noir at a by-the-glass-friendly price without sacrificing a thing in the glass.

Refreshed in 2022 with labels that put the Willamette Valley front and center, Kings Ridge honors its role as the original label of a family-owned company that has never stopped making decisions for the long term — wines that bring people together over a weeknight dinner, a restaurant pour, or a celebration that didn’t need an excuse.