Eyrie Vineyards pioneered Pinot Gris in the Willamette Valley and arguably the New World. David Lett planted America’s first commercial Pinot Gris vines in the Eyrie Vineyard at the same time he was putting his Pinot Noir vines in the soil. Eyrie set the bar and remains at the pinnacle of Gris production in the area. Eyrie takes the long way around when it comes to Pinot Gris, aging wines on lees for up to four times longer than many of their more commercial competitors and allowing full malolactic conversion. The result is wines of supple texture complementing fresh acidities and incredible ageability.

Pinot Gris is a core tenet of the Eyrie tale, and plantings have increased due to demand. Pinot Gris vines can now be found in the Roland Green, Sisters and Daphne vineyards, as well as the original 1965 Eyrie Vineyard plantings. The 2021 season was warm, with long, dry periods punctuated by short spells of rain. The summer was warm but brought into balance by a cool close to the season in September and October. Chilly nights preserved acid freshness throughout, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit is destemmed, pressed and fermented in stainless-steel tank. The wine sees full malolactic conversion and rests in tank for 11 months on lees before bottling.

Eyrie’s Sisters Vineyard is the lowest site of the estate and is home to seven varieties, including Chasselas. Jason Lett chose this site for his experimental plantings due to its low elevation: the higher you go in the Dundee Hills, the more variety takes a backseat to site expression. For instance, compared to the powerful 260-metre-high Daphne site, Sisters at 67 metres—with its slightly alluvial silt soils—is a gentle site, allowing the variety to shine brighter than place.

The Chasselas was a happy accident. One rogue vine was included in a batch of Muscat plantings sent from UC Davis. It was only noticed when a friend of the family, who just happened to be a Swiss vine researcher, noticed the outlier when walking through the vineyard. “Oh, Chasselas!” he exclaimed. They took cuttings, planted a small block and spent many heartbreaking and frustrating years trying to figure out how to make it taste delicious. Jason finally cracked the code in 2013 when he picked it at 10% potential alcohol rather than 12%―at which the wine was continually underwhelming―and it turned out perfectly: fully ripe and bursting with flavour. The 2021 chimes in at a bright, elegant 11.5% alcohol, lacking for nothing in flavour, texture, weight or sheer enjoyment. This is Chasselas the Eyrie way.

The grapes were handpicked from 12 rows of ungrafted vines and fermented in steel with full malolactic conversion and 11 months on lees.

David Lett thought he had planted Pinot Blanc in the original Eyrie Vineyard back in 1965. It turns out UC Davis made a mistake (not unusual at the time), and the vines they sent were, in fact, Melon de Bourgogne. So, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Letts received real clones of Pinot Blanc from Alsace and planted them across three blocks in their lowest site, Sisters Vineyard. Already home to Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, this addition completed the Pinot family plantings, hence the name Sisters.

The fruit is handpicked, destemmed, pressed and sent to small stainless-steel tanks for fermentation and maturation. As with the Pinot Gris, Eyrie ages its Pinot Blanc for three to four times longer than most others in the region, and the wine undergoes full malolactic conversion. The wine was bottled after 11 months in barrel on lees. Jason Lett tells us the extended period on lees serves a dual purpose: pulling richness into the wine, while the fruity esters bound up in the yeast hulls get released back into the wine during the later summer months, adding bright, fresh fruit character back to the wine. So, you get a sense of fullness and freshness at relatively low alcohol levels. There’s a reason Eyrie’s Blanc is considered a New World benchmark.

Eyrie’s Chardonnay story reinforces the visionary nature of its founder, David Lett. When planting Chardonnay back in 1964, he eschewed what he saw as unsuitable clones from UC Davis, choosing instead mass-selection cuttings from old vines (Draper clone, planted in the 1890s and 1930s) in California that he felt better suited to Oregon’s cooler climate. Unsurprisingly, his foresight has paid off, and Eyrie now boasts some of Oregon's oldest and most revered Chardonnay vine material. Since 2015, he has included a small portion of fruit from mass-selection vines (Wente clone and Sterling clone) planted in Sisters Vineyard in the foundational Eyrie Vineyard base.

The clonal breakdown for the 2021 Chardonnay is as follows: 61% Draper Selection from 57-year-old vines on the original Eyrie Vineyard; 26% Wente clone from eight-year-old vines in Sisters Vineyard; and 13% Sterling clone from eight-year-old vines in Sisters Vineyard. 2021 was another low-yielding season marked by warm, dry periods punctuated by short spells of rain. The summer was warm but brought into balance by a cool close to the season in September and October, while chilly nights preserved acid freshness across the board. Handpicked fruit was lightly pressed as whole bunches in a combination of antique basket press and Champagne cycle press. The juice was then gently run to primarily neutral French oak barrels (5% new) for natural fermentation. It underwent full malolactic conversion and matured for 11 months on lees with no stirring.

Eyrie’s Trifolium brings together all three red varieties grown on its five estate vineyards. Some unwelcome rain at flowering decimated yields for the Eyrie team in 2020, leaving them 60% down overall. So, Jason decided to blend all his reds from the season into one wine. It’s important to note that Jason considers the quality of the vintage among the very best he’s seen. We’ll let him explain: “The density and concentration of this vintage are like nothing we’ve ever seen, putting even vintages like 1988 and 1998 to shame. Yet due to the cool summer, the natural acidity is as close to perfect as we could ever hope for, and alcohols are modest.”

What you’re getting with the Trifolium is Eyrie’s best Pinot Noir fruit (so the Willamette Valley’s best Pinot), including the material that would usually make the flagship single-vineyard bottlings, combined with Meunier and Trousseau, from an excellent vintage.

The blend is Pinot Noir (77%), Trousseau (15%) and Meunier (8%), picked by hand, destemmed and fermented in a range of vessels. Punch-downs were done by hand twice daily, and the wine matured for 28 months in wood, 17% of which was new.

Inspired by the great wines he had tasted from Montigny-les-Arsures in Jura, Jason Lett planted the Willamette Valley’s first Trousseau Noir in 2012 in the 20-acre Sisters Vineyard. This directly south-facing vineyard is the lowest site at 67 metres, and the youngest in the Eyrie fold. It’s named after the Pinot sisters (Blanc, Gris and Noir) and is planted to seven different varieties.

Hand-picked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small, open-top 11-hectolitre vessels. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before a light pressing. The wine was aged in old oak puncheons for 10 months. To preserve the purity and bright nature of the delicate Trousseau fruit, only seasoned wood was used, and the wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered with just moderate amounts of sulphur.

In another first for the Lett family, David Lett planted the original Willamette Valley Meunier vines. Plantings are spread across two of the five sites—Daphne and Sisters, the highest and the lowest on the property. Daphne Vineyard is on the crest of a hill and is one of the oldest and highest sites (260m) in the Dundee Hills AVA. The soils are shallow, averaging less than 10 inches on top of the volcanic bedrock. The site is windy and cool, and as a result, the vines are small and the fruit intense. Sisters Vineyard, planted in 1989, is the youngest of the five Eyrie sites. It sits at 67 metres, faces south and has more sedimentary soils. Jason Lett describes the 2019 autumn as one of the most Burgundian he has ever seen in the Valley, meaning the rain and cooler days that usually occur in the winter arrived earlier and were more evenly spread. The moderate conditions facilitated great retention of acidity across the board. Hand-picked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small vessels, ranging from one-tonne bins to five-tonne wooden cuve. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (8% new) for 22 months.

The estate Pinot Noir combines fruit from Eyrie’s five estate vineyards: Sisters, Outcrop, Roland Green, The Eyrie and Daphne. All five sites are in the Dundee Hills AVA at various elevations, ranging from Sisters at 67 metres to Daphne at 260 metres. As you go higher, three things change: the soils get less sedimentary and more volcanic; it gets colder; and it gets windier. So, the Estate Pinot Noir from Eyrie is a great representation of the Dundee Hills AVA through the delicate, perfumed Eyrie lens.

All five sites are farmed organically. The team practises no-till farming and uses no insecticides, herbicides, fertilisers, cover crops or composts. It has been done this way since David Lett established Eyrie Vineyards in 1965, and little (if anything) has changed. The result is some of the state's healthiest, most diverse and organically rich soils.

The 2021 season was warm, with long, dry periods punctuated by short spells of rain. The summer was warm but brought into balance by a cool close to the season in September and October. Chilly nights preserved acid freshness throughout, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small fermenters ranging from one-tonne bins to five-tonne wooden cuves. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (just 8% was new) for 15 months.

The Eyrie Vineyard is home to the original Pinot Noir vines planted in the Willamette Valley by Eyrie founder David Lett back in 1965. It is also home to the hawks that inspired the name of the estate—an eyrie is a bird of prey’s nest—and that grace the label of each wine. The seven-acre site is home to three clones (Wadenswil, Pommard and Upright) of own-rooted Pinot Noir vines, planted between 1965 and 1974. The sloping site faces south, rolling east to west and rising to 125 metres at its highest point. Like the other sites in the Eyrie stable, this vineyard is farmed organically and regeneratively to ensure a healthy network of soil organisms to support the wizened vines.

The Eyrie Pinot Noir is one of five identically produced wines from Eyrie’s vineyards. The collection represents a fascinating journey from 67 metres (Sisters Vineyard) to 260 metres’ (Daphne Vineyard) elevation in the Dundee hills, viewed through the Eyrie lens. Jason Lett describes the 2019 autumn as one of the most Burgundian he has ever seen in the Valley, meaning the rain and cooler days that usually occur in the winter arrived earlier and were more evenly spread. It was a moderate season with good acid retention across the board, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small open-top, 11-hectolitre fermenters. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (12% new) barrique and foudre for 23 months.

Daphne Vineyard is the Eyrie estate’s highest, located at the top of the hill and reaching 262 metres at its highest point. Planted in 1974 to the Pommard clone, it’s home to just 0.6 hectares of Pinot Noir vines and produces intensely favoured wines from low yields of tiny bunches. Its location at the crest of a hill means its soils are very shallow, averaging less than ten inches of topsoils above large stone boulders.

Daphne Vineyard Pinot Noir is one of five identically produced wines from Eyrie’s vineyards. The collection represents a fascinating journey from 67 metres (Sisters Vineyard) to 260 metres’ (Daphne Vineyard) elevation in the Dundee hills, viewed through the Eyrie lens. Jason Lett describes the 2019 autumn as one of the most Burgundian he has ever seen in the Valley, meaning the rain and cooler days that usually occur in the winter arrived earlier and were more evenly spread. It was a moderate season with good acid retention across the board, something Eyrie values deeply. Handpicked fruit was destemmed and fermented naturally in small open-top, 11-hectolitre fermenters. Ferments were hand-plunged twice daily before being lightly pressed and aged in primarily old oak (12% new) barrique and foudre for 23 months.