10% case discount - full or mixed cases. Case discount is automatically applied, when purchases in your cart total 12 bottles or more.

NEW RELEASES:
2008 BlackCap Reserve Pinot noir
2008 Eyrie “Daphne Vineyard” Pinot noir
2008 Eyrie “Original Vines Reserve” Chardonnay
2008 BlackCap Reserve Chardonnay

CURRENT FAVORITES:
2008 “Limited Bottling” Muscat Ottonel
2008 Eyrie Estate Pinot blanc
2007 Eyrie Estate Pinot gris
2007 Eyrie Estate Pinot noir
Special Edition, for Lupe ~ La Luz Pinot noir

Taste the new old Elva in action, at our winery tasting room, 935 NE 10th Avenue, McMinnville.

CLICK HERE to download a map.

“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

“The Eyrie Vineyards has not missed a beat since Jason Lett took over the reins from his late father, Oregon legend David Lett.” – 10/09 Wine Advocate

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

Click Here To Listen

or go to The Splendid Table website: splendidtable.publicradio.org

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.

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.