Floods, earthquakes, fire, volcanic eruptions and the movement of oceans and continents. Sounds like the making of an apocalyptic movie. While not an upcoming summer blockbuster, it is the incredible formation of what we know as Oregon.

The story begins around 200 million years ago when the Pacific Plate started sliding beneath the North American Plate. Much of western Oregon and most of Washington didn’t exist, but over millions of years, the plate left behind shards of its surface, which was once a seabed. The shards continued to build becoming a marine sedimentary landmass. That land eventually became what we know today as Washington and western Oregon — this movement and the development of new land continue to this day.

About 20 million years later, a violent chain of volcanoes, the Blue Mountains of Southeast Washington and Northeast Oregon sent tremendous flows of lava into the Willamette Valley, where it created layers of basalt. Eventually with time, erosion, weathering and again, millions of years, the layer of basalt broke up and moved around. The movement of lava was helped in part by the forces of an infamous series of floods.

Between 15,500 and 12,700 years ago, a south-moving glacier clogged rivers near Missoula, Mont., causing Lake Missoula to expand, eventually breaching the glacier’s ice dam and sending massive floods into western Oregon to a depth of 300 feet. The process repeated itself every 60 to 90 years for a total of 36 events. As each flood receded, a small layer of sediment was deposited, covering elevations below 330 feet and producing a fertile valley floor. The powerful floods also helped shape the landscape through land movement and the upheaval of the basalt layers.

It is these fingers of rocky material that have bred some of the most sought after wine regions around the state, from the legendary Willamette Valley down south to the Rogue and Applegate Valleys and back up in the northeast to the Rocks at Milton Freewater. Under a blanket of rocks that absorb the heat of the day in the colder months, the vines benefit from a longer season; while great drainage allows wine grapes to build both power and flavor. Mother Oregon has given us more than a few great examples of such wines.