Chapter 5: Bill Fuller of Tualatin Estate Vineyards

Bill Fuller had already worked in the lab at Italian Swiss Colony, gotten an MS in enology at U.C. Davis and had been the winemaker at Louis Martini Winery for 9 years when he helped evaluate vineyard sites for an investment banker in Oregon. They became partners in a 65-acre site northwest of Forest Grove in 1972, which they named Tualatin Vineyards. Bill moved his wife Virginia and family to Oregon that fall. The next year, he remodeled the house and converted the barn into a winery in time for their first vintage, using Washington grapes. We met up with Bill in the winery’s original barrel room on October 16, 2020.