Eyrie Vineyards
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Eyrie Vineyards consists of 49 acres in several different vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, The vineyards and winery were established by owner and winemaker David Lett (1939- ), who produced the first Pinot Gris in the United States. Against the advice of viticultural professors at the Universtiy of California at Davis (UC Davis), Lett and his wife, Diana, moved to Oregon to plant pinot noir in 1966. Their first vintage was in 1970.
The 1975 Eyrie Vineyards Reserve Pinot Noir won first place among Pinot Noirs in blind tasting at the Wine Olympics in 1979.
Burgundy winemaker Robert Drouhin on the firm Joseph Drouhin was so distressed with the results that he staged a re-match at the Drouhin Cellars in France using only French tasters. Competing against the very best vintages of Drouhin Grand Crus wines, the 1975 Eyrie Vineyards Reserve won second place to Drouhin's 1959 Chambolle-Musigny by a margin of only two-tenths of one point. Drouhin later purchased land in Oregon and build Domaine Drouhin Oregon.
Over the years David Lett (known locally as "Papa Pinot") has maintained a light-handed style of pinot noir that has not followed the trend toward greater flavor, tannin, and color extraction. This has put him at odds with some of the wine critics. However, his wines are very long lived and can develop great complexity and earthy nuance when other wines have become tired.
The Eyrie Vineyards estate vineyards are now in the Willamette Valley sub AVA known as the Dundee Hills. The winery itself is in McMinnville, Oregon, which annually hosts the International Pinot Noir Celebration each year on the last weekend in July on the campus of Linfield College.
[edit] See also
- The Eyrie Vineyards web site [1]
- Blind tasting of wine
- Paris Wine Tasting of 1976
- Ottawa Wine Tasting of 1981
- Trefethen Vineyards (also participated in Wine Olympics re-match)
