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Willamette Valley

Where the pursuit began.

Oregon’s volcanic hillsides, old vines, and cool-climate tension shaped the foundation of 00 Wines.

00 Wines began in Oregon’s Willamette Valley with a belief that this landscape could produce Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with the depth, precision, and age-worthy structure of the world’s great cool-climate wines. Founded by Chris and Kathryn Hermann, and rooted in the vision Chris shared with his late father, Dr. Richard Hermann, the project grew from family heritage, scientific curiosity, and a conviction that Oregon still had more to reveal.

Our Story Here

A family project with a global ambition.

00 Wines was founded in 2015 in the Willamette Valley by Chris and Kathryn Hermann, with the founding vision deeply connected to Chris’s late father, Dr. Richard Hermann, a botanist and Douglas fir geneticist at Oregon State University. What began as a family project became a serious pursuit: to show that Oregon Chardonnay and Pinot Noir could stand within the great conversation of fine wine.

For Chris, Oregon was not an abstract choice. He had lived much of his life in the Willamette Valley and came to the project with a deep knowledge of its vineyards, soils, and potential. The early work of 00 Wines was built around the question of how far Oregon could go when treated with the same seriousness, patience, and technical ambition traditionally associated with Burgundy.

Kathryn brought a different but equally essential force to the house: entrepreneurship, creative direction, technology, brand-building, and the ability to translate a deeply technical wine project into a refined, international language. Together, Chris and Kathryn shaped 00 Wines into a house that is both Oregon-born and globally minded, grounded in the Willamette Valley but always in dialogue with Burgundy, Champagne, and the world’s great cool-climate regions.

Why We Work Here

Oregon through the lens of precision.

The Willamette Valley is the first pearl in the 00 Wines strand. Its beauty is not only scenic; it is structural. Volcanic basalt, marine sedimentary soils, elevation, forested hillsides, and cooling coastal influence create a landscape where Chardonnay and Pinot Noir can carry both delicacy and force.

For 00 Wines, Oregon offers the rare combination we seek everywhere: tension without severity, depth without heaviness, fruit without excess, and mineral clarity without austerity. The wines can be luminous, but never simple. They carry weather, stone, vine age, and the human decisions made around them.

This is why our Willamette Valley work is not simply about making Oregon wine. It is about revealing Oregon with the greatest possible precision.

Chardonnay

The Chardonnay question.

From the beginning, Chardonnay has been central to 00 Wines. Chris Hermann is widely recognized for pioneering the Black Chardonnay method in the United States, reviving an old Burgundian approach that involves oxidative handling, extended skin contact, and a willingness to let the juice move through a dark, unsettled stage before revealing clarity and depth.

This method is not used for drama. It is used for structure. It can produce Chardonnay with uncommon texture, density, phenolic presence, and longevity, allowing Oregon fruit to speak with more resonance and architectural depth.

At its best, Willamette Valley Chardonnay gives 00 Wines a language of citrus oil, orchard fruit, white flowers, wet stone, saline length, and quiet power. It is one of the clearest expressions of our house philosophy: minimal intervention, maximum attention.

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir as inheritance.

Pinot Noir carries the family side of the 00 Wines story. Dr. Richard Hermann and Chris founded 00 Wines as a family project centered on their shared passion for Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and Richard remained an active part of the business even in his nineties.

That legacy continues in the wines. 00 Wines Pinot Noir is not built around weight or obvious power. It is built around lift, aromatic clarity, fine structure, and the ability of each vineyard to reveal its own internal shape.

The 2021 Richard Hermann Cuvée Pinot Noir received a perfect 100-point score from Jeb Dunnuck, a rare achievement for Oregon wine and a testament to the seriousness of the house’s Pinot Noir program.

The Vineyards

A string of Oregon pearls.

In the Willamette Valley, 00 Wines works with vineyard sites chosen for their ability to hold tension, transmit soil, and produce wines with long, luminous structure. These are not interchangeable sources of fruit. Each vineyard is its own pearl: distinct in geology, exposure, elevation, and personality.

Our Work in the Cellar

Attention without distortion.

00 Wines approaches the cellar as a place of translation. The goal is not to decorate the fruit or impose a style, but to carry the vineyard forward with precision.

That requires intensity of attention: handwork, careful sorting, patient élevage, and a willingness to use old techniques when they serve clarity. In Chardonnay, that may mean the Black Chardonnay method. In Pinot Noir, it may mean choices that protect lift, texture, and site expression rather than extraction for its own sake.

Our work in the Willamette Valley is guided by one question: what does this place want to become if given the time, discipline, and respect usually reserved for the world’s most revered vineyards?

The Oregon Foundation of 00 Wines

The Willamette Valley is where 00 Wines began.

Here, the project’s central ideas first took form: Chardonnay with depth and light, Pinot Noir with structure and lift, and vineyards treated as living sources of meaning. Explore the Willamette Valley wines and vineyard sites that continue to define the 00 Wines pursuit.