One generation in, the wine growers in Oregon's Willamette Valley are a confident lot.

They've just come through two exceptionally cool and protracted vintages. While these conditions in 2010 and 2011 caused nail-biting at harvest, especially for Pinot Noir, the resulting wines have been spectacular - structured, lucid and bracing, a clarion call of regional expression like no other vintages in Oregon's history.

Just 10 years ago, the valley's wines didn't inspire this degree of confidence. Everything from climate change to inexperience resulted in wines that veered either toward exceptional promise or maddening inconsistency.

Then came ...