The Eyrie Vineyards

Oregon’s founding Pinot Noir estate, established by David and Diana Lett. David earned a viticulture and enology degree at UC Davis, where his introduction to Pinot Noir came through Burgundy rather than California. He planted his first vines at a Corvallis nursery on February 22, 1965, then spent months driving the state selling textbooks and digging soil samples until he found an abandoned prune orchard in the Dundee Hills. The couple transplanted the cuttings there in 1966 and named it after the eyrie — the nest of red-tailed hawks in the firs above the vineyard. Their first vintage came in 1970.

Lett is credited with the first plantings of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris in the Willamette Valley, and the first Pinot Gris anywhere in the United States. The 1975 South Block Reserve placed in the top ten of the 1979 Gault-Millau Wine Olympiad in Paris; Burgundy producer Robert Drouhin organized a rematch in Beaune the following year, where it finished second to his own 1959 Chambolle-Musigny by two-tenths of a point. Drouhin subsequently bought land in the Dundee Hills and founded Domaine Drouhin Oregon.

Known as Papa Pinot, Lett made wines aimed at delicacy and ageability even as the region trended toward richness and immediate appeal. Jason Lett took over as owner, winemaker, and vineyard manager with the 2005 vintage and runs the estate with co-owner Diana Lett. He has preserved his father’s restraint while introducing longer fermentations and indigenous yeasts, and has replanted from original-vine cuttings to preserve the family’s clonal material. Production is around 10,000 cases across roughly 55 to 60 acres in five Dundee Hills vineyards, with 95% estate grown — Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Meunier, Melon de Bourgogne, Trousseau Noir, and Muscat Ottonel.

The tasting room is in McMinnville rather than at the vineyard, set inside a working production space where you walk past barrels on the way in. Tastings run about an hour and are led with as much history as the guest wants.