Save the date - March 11! More than 50 Oregon winemakers are bringing our wines to Seattle, with special events for Trade and Tasters! See “UPCOMING EVENTS” page at right for more details. Contact www.willamettewines.com for more information, and for registration and ticket puchases.
“From grape-growing to elevage, this is an artisanal, non-interventionist, unique operation that continues to turn out some of the most fascinating wines on the planet.” Jay Miller, Wine Advocate, October 2009
“The Eyrie Vineyards has not missed a beat since Jason Lett took over the reins from his late father, Oregon legend David Lett.” – Wine Advocate.
ENJOY A 10% CASE DISCOUNT on new releases, current vintages, and selected Library and special edition wines!
(Eyrie Wine Club Members, please fax or call in your order, any size, to receive special discounts!)
Click here for wines available online, or at the winery tasting room.
CLICK HERE to download a map to the winery, 935 NE 10th Avenue, in McMinnville. Our Tasting Room is open 12:00-5:00, Wednesdays-Sundays,
First Day of Harvest, 2009 ~
The beginning is always hard to separate from the end. We started picking today, and it is the end of the vintage for every vine we harvest. The fruit has burgeoned over months, starting as a tiny, citrus-scented flower to reach this apotheosis: a quick snip in the cool of the morning. The life of the cluster has come to its end.
But that snip is the very beginning of the wine. An acre of grapes goes into one press. The berries, pressed, yield their juice–the first of the run of Pinot gris is tart and green. The press cycles—14 pounds of pressure, then 28, then 42—backing off the platen and fluffing the berries up again between each squeeze. Each cycle brings its own character to the wine, the last yielding juice the color of rose-hip tea and sweet with the sugars stored next to the skins. It takes three hours of slow respiration of the platen of our old basket-presses to finish the cycle. We are left with an empty press and a few hundred pounds of skins, but also with a full tank of heavy juice, giving leave to the yeasts to make it wine.
When you pick the grapes, you can almost hear the vine’s relief. The canes, unburdened of their fruit, spring straight again. The beautiful architecture of the vine, and all the hand labor that went into assisting it to its form, suddenly clarifies. The leaves change color almost immediately. Freed from the burden of photosynthesis, the vines secret their remaining sugars into their trunks and begin their preparations for the winter to come.
By the time the leaves have fallen, the juice has fermented to wine. The vines grow dormant. The cool of winter steals into the winery and the second fermentation begins, the long malolactic that carries the wine safely through winter. A period of age, the careful tumult into the bottle—and someday to the table, where another end, and another beginning, awaits the wine-to-be.
~ Jason Lett, October 6th, 2009
Hear about Oregon Pinot noir and The Eyrie Vineyards. In September 2008, just a few weeks before his death, David Lett and his son Jason Lett were visited by Lynne Rossetto Kasper, and interviewed for “The Splendid Table”. The interview aired on National Public Radio on 9/21/08, and was repeated in September 2009. You can still hear it here. “A great tribute to family love and endeavor.”
or go to The Splendid Table website: splendidtable.publicradio.org
On July 23, The Eyrie Vineyards presented a Chardonnay tasting of historic proportions. 38 Eyrie vintages were poured, from Eyrie’s (and the Willamette Valley’s) first vintage in 1970, to our most recent release, the 2007 Reserve. Members of the international wine media, Eyrie staff and crew, and a group of friends and supporters gathered to taste the Chardonnays of Eyrie’s founder, David Lett, and son Jason Lett, who took the helm at Eyrie in 2005.
The reason for this Retrospective was, above all, to raise funds to benefit the young family of our cellarmaster, Julio Hernandez. Julio’s wife Lupe is suffering from renal failure, and needs a kidney transplant. Despite having insurance, the costs are monumental.
Proceeds from the sale of Eyrie Reserve Chardonnays will go to help cover Lupe’s uninsured medical expenses. We hope you will join our efforts, and enjoy some unique and beautiful Chardonnays at the same time.
PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR A CHARDONNAY PRICE LIST AND ORDER FORM.
To learn more about this event, and to read British wine authority Jancis Robinson’s tasting notes, go to “Eyrie Chardonnay Retrospective” at the bottom of the column to your right.
David Lett, founder of The Eyrie Vineyards, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science degree by the faculty and trustees of Linfield College at Commencement ceremonies on May 31. The honor was given in recognition of David’s “visionary work to establish Oregon’s world-renowned wine industry”.
Jason Lett accepted the posthumous degree on behalf of his father and family, and delivered the 2009 Linfield College commencement address “Castles in the Air”. The title of Jason’s address was based on a quotation from Henry David Thoreau, that David carried with him for 40 years: “If a man proceeds confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in the common hour….”
CLICK HERE FOR JASON’S ADDRESS, Part 1
CLICK HERE FOR JASON’S ADDRESS, Part 2
Click here to see photo and summary at the Linfield website.
Click here to see article in the McMinnville News-Register.
David Lett planted the first Pinot noir vines in the Willamette Valley, and earned the first international recognition for Oregon wines. In 2005, he passed the Eyrie legacy to 2nd-generation winemaker Jason Lett. Want to learn more of the history behind The Eyrie Vineyards? Check out our About page.