68 Best Sights in The Willamette Valley and Wine Country, Oregon

Four miles outside of McKenzie Bridge is the highest embankment dam ever built by the Army Corps of Engineers—452 feet above the streambed. The resulting reservoir, on the South Fork McKenzie River, covers 1,280 acres. The dam generates 25 megawatts of power, and includes a fish collection and sorting facility, and a temperature control tower to keep the downstream water at a suitable temperature for spawning. The public recreation areas are in the Willamette National Forest. You can visit the dam year-round, but some campgrounds are open only from April to September.

In 1965 Charles Coury came to Oregon from California and planted some of the Willamette Valley's first Pinot Noir vines on the site of what is now the David Hill Winery. The original farmhouse serves as the tasting room and offers splendid views of the Tualatin Valley. They produce Pinot Noir, some of which comes from the original vines planted by Coury, along with Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Merlot, Tempranillo, Pinot Gris, and Riesling. The wines are well made and pleasant, especially the eclectic blend called Farmhouse Red and the estate Riesling, and guests can order from a small menu of charcuterie boards and snacks.

Fresh local produce—some from booths, some from the backs of trucks—as well as local arts and crafts are on sale Saturday from late-April through October. Live music is played throughout the day. The market is just a block from the MAX light rail line.

Founded in 1974 by Pat and Joe Campbell, this established winery covers 600 acres on four separate vineyard sites. The tasting room is set in the beautiful rolling hills at the foot of the coast range overlooking the vines. The focus is on Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Pinot Blanc. Be sure to also try the limited bottling of their Pinot Noir Rosé if they're pouring it.

This flamboyant Tudor Gothic vaudeville house opened on May 28, 1926, with Edgar Bergen in attendance. Clark Gable (who lived in nearby Silverton) and Gregory Peck performed on stage. The theater was designed to look like a castle, with a false-stone front, chandeliers, ironwork, and stained-glass windows. It's now a lively performing arts center with a busy schedule of comedy and music bookings, and there are concerts on its Wurlitzer pipe organ.

South of Salem, the Enchanted Forest is the closest thing Oregon has to a major theme park. The park has several attractions in forest-like surroundings, including a Big Timber Log Ride. On it, you ride logs through flumes that pass through a lumber mill and the woods. The ride—the biggest log ride in the Northwest—has a 25-foot roller-coaster dip and a 40-foot drop at the end. Other attractions include the Ice Mountain Bobsled roller coaster, the Haunted House, English Village, Storybook Lane, the Fantasy Fountains Water Light Show, Fort Fearless, and the Western town of Tofteville.

Formerly the Willamette Science and Technology Center (WISTEC), and still known to locals by its former name, Eugene's imaginative, hands-on museum assembles rotating exhibits designed for curious young minds. The adjacent planetarium, one of the largest in the Pacific Northwest, presents star shows and entertainment events.

Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose, the largest plane ever built and constructed entirely of wood, is on permanent display, but if you can take your eyes off the giant you will also see more than 45 historic planes and replicas from the early years of flight and World War II, as well as the postwar and modern eras. Across the parking lot from the aviation museum is the space museum with artifacts that include a German V-2 rocket and a Titan missile, complete with silo and launch control room.

When David Lett planted the first Pinot Noir vines in the Willamette Valley in 1965, he was setting in motion a series of events that caused Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to be recognized as among the best in the world. Affectionately known as Papa Pinot, Lett, along with several other pioneering winemakers, nurtured the Oregon wine industry to what it is today. Today, David's son Jason Lett is now the winemaker and vineyard manager, and continues to make Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay that reflect the gentle touch that has always characterized Eyrie wines. In recent years, many small wineries have sprung up in the neighborhood around this historic winery.

Located right on the main highway between Portland and wine country, Fratelli Ponzi Fine Food and Wine Bar offers the opportunity to sample wines from both the Ponzi Winery and small local producers without straying far from the beaten path. It's a good place to stop to sample current releases of Ponzi wines and locally produced wines by the glass.

Celebrating the life and the inventions of A.C. Gilbert, a Salem native who became a toy manufacturer and inventor, this museum is an amazing place to let the imagination run wild. There are themed interactive rooms along with a huge outdoor play structure. In addition to the children's activities, many beloved toys created by A.C. Gilbert are on display, including Erector sets and American Flyer trains. The wide range of indoor and outdoor interactive exhibits will appeal to children (and adults) of all ages.

Learn more about the history of track-and-field at the University of Oregon by paying a visit to Hayward Hall, a 4,000-square-foot exhibition space featuring interactive displays and running-related ephemera. Windows near the entrance look out over the historic Hayward Field, which was demolished and rebuilt from scratch to host the 2022 World Athletics Championships.

In 1885 Dr. Henry Minthorn invited his orphan nephew Herbert "Bertie" Hoover to come west and join the Minthorn family in Newberg. Built in 1881, the restored frame house, the oldest and most significant of Newberg's original structures, still has many of its original furnishings, including the president's boyhood bed and dresser. Hoover maintained his connection to Newberg, and visited several times after his presidency.

This is the locus of Eugene's cultural life. Renowned for the quality of its acoustics, the center has two theaters that are home to Eugene's symphony and opera.

This 710-acre floodplain and woods is home to thousands of ducks and geese, deer, otters, beavers, herons, and eagles. Nearly  five miles of walking trails allow birders and other animal watchers to explore the wetlands for a chance to catch a glimpse of indigenous and migrating creatures in their own habitats. The Education Center has several hands-on exhibits, as well as a real bald eagle's nest that has been completely preserved (and sanitized) for public display. No dogs, scooters, motorized vehicles, or bicycles are allowed.

Works from the 20th and 21st centuries are a specialty in these handsome galleries on the University of Oregon campus. They feature works by many leading Pacific Northwest artists, and European, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese works are also on view, as are 300 works commissioned by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and '40s. You can also view an ever-changing collection of important works from private collections by internationally recognized artists through the museum's Masterworks On Loan program.

Carlton's former train depot is now the tasting room for Ken Wright Cellars and his warm-climate label, Tyrus Evan. The winery specializes in single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, each subtly different from the next depending on the soil types and grape clones. The wines are poured side by side, giving you an opportunity to go back and forth to compare them. The Tyrus Evan wines are quite different from the Ken Wright Pinots: they are warm-climate varieties like Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Syrah, and red Bordeaux blends, from grapes Wright buys from vineyards in eastern Washington and southern Oregon.

One of Oregon's largest producers is known for its crisp Pinot Gris and silky Pinot Noir and boasts the largest Demeter-certified biodynamic vineyard in the nation. Guests can sample wines at the tasting room (by appointment) or reserve a spot at the restaurant, which highlights local meats and organic produce grown in the estate gardens.

This 1,654-acre, full-service park has hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails along with overnight camping. There are full hookup sites, tent sites, small cabins, and even a horse camp. Lush rolling hills, forests, and deep canyons are terrific for bird-watching, wildflower walks, and other relaxing pursuits. An 18-hole disc golf course winds its way through a dense forest. In case you don't know, in disc golf players throw a disc at a target and attempt to complete the course with the fewest throws.

Housed inside a purpose-built pavilion, Lane County market offers produce and products that are grown or made in Oregon on Tuesdays and Saturdays throughout the year.

Designed from the ground up to be a no-compromises Pinot Noir production facility with an eye to Willamette Valley aesthetics, the highlight here is a diverse range of single-vineyard Pinot Noirs. But don't neglect the bright Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, and Riesling. The spacious high-ceiling tasting room is a great place to relax and take in the view through the floor-to-ceiling windows, or bring a picnic and enjoy the deck on a warm summer day.

Highway 126, as it heads east from Eugene, is known as the McKenzie River Highway. Following the curves of the river, it passes grazing lands, fruit and nut orchards, and the small riverside hamlets of the McKenzie Valley. From the highway you can glimpse the bouncing, bubbling, blue-green McKenzie River, one of Oregon's top fishing, boating, and white-water rafting spots, against a backdrop of densely forested mountains, splashing waterfalls, and jet-black lava beds. The small town of McKenzie Bridge marks the end of the McKenzie River Highway and the beginning of the 26-mile McKenzie River National Recreation Trail, which heads north through the Willamette National Forest along portions of the Old Santiam Wagon Road.

This beautiful nature preserve near southeast Eugene includes extensive all-weather trails, educational programs for all ages, and facilities for special events. Its visitor center holds workshops and features native amphibian and reptile terraria; microscopes for exploring tiny seeds, bugs, feathers, and snakeskins; "touch me" exhibits; reference books; and a working viewable beehive.

Just outside the town of Silverton, a 25-minute drive from Salem, the Oregon Garden showcases the botanical diversity of the Willamette Valley and Pacific Northwest. The 80-acre garden features themed plots ranging from a conifer forest to medicinal plants. There's also a whimsical children's garden complete with a make-believe fossil dig, and another garden featuring the agricultural bounty of the area. From April to September, visitors can take a narrated tram tour through the garden.

It's a thrill to be on campus on game day, when students are a sea of orange and black cheering on their beloved Beavers. This 400-acre campus, west of the city center, was established as a land-grant institution in 1868. OSU has more than 27,000 students, many of them studying the university's nationally recognized programs in conservation biology, agricultural sciences, nuclear engineering, forestry, fisheries and wildlife management, community health, pharmacy, and zoology.

Lynn Penner-Ash brought a wealth of experience working in Napa and as Rex Hill's winemaker to this winery that she and her husband Ron started in 1998. Although focused primarily on silky Pinot Noir, Penner-Ash also produces very good Syrah, Viognier, and Riesling. From its hilltop perch in the middle of the Dussin vineyard, this state-of-the-art gravity-flow winery and tasting room offers commanding views of the valley below.

Though the Independence area is more known for hops than vineyards, Red Gate produces a wide variety of wines, from Pinots to Syrah, Tempranillo, and even port-style dessert wines. The small, pub-like tasting room has some of the most reasonably priced flights in the area and live music events throughout the year.

A few hundred feet off the busy highway, surrounded by conifers and overlooked by vineyards, Rex Hill seems to exist in a world of its own. The winery opened in 1982, after owners Paul Hart and Jan Jacobsen converted a former nut-drying facility. It produces first-class Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling from both estate-grown and purchased grapes. The tasting room has a massive fireplace, elegant antiques, and an absorbing collection of modern art, though summer visitors may prefer to enjoy their wine on the dog-friendly patio or out in the beautifully landscaped garden.

Hidden amid old-growth Douglas firs in the foothills of the Cascades, this is the largest state park in Oregon (8,700 acres). South Falls, roaring over the lip of a mossy basalt bowl into a deep pool 177 feet below, is the main attraction here, but 13 other waterfalls—half of them more than 100 feet high—are accessible to hikers. The best time to visit is in the fall, when vine maples blaze with brilliant color, or early spring, when the forest floor is carpeted with trilliums and yellow violets; in winter you can cross-country ski. Cabin and lodge accommodations are also available.