The Eyrie Vineyards

Vines at Eyrie have never been farmed conventionally—no herbicides or artificial pesticides have ever been used, and the land has never been tilled or irrigated. The estate has been certified organic since 2013, “mainly because I have a higher tolerance for paperwork than my father did,” says second-generation winemaker Jason Lett. After speaking with a biodynamics consultant back in the 1990s who advised ripping the soil, the Letts decided against that system. “We are adamant about no-till farming, and there is no certification for that,” Jason notes. No-till farming is especially important for the old, own-rooted vines under imminent threat of phylloxera. Jason also notes that no-till farming decreases drought stress: grasses and plants on the surface consume the uppermost water, forcing vine roots deeper. “Without plowing, you’re letting earthworms and beetles aerate the soil, and those air pockets become water-holding pockets,” he says. “You turn a pile of powder into a sponge.” Eyrie also offers something more nontangible than certifications—viticultural heritage. Jason works fastidiously to preserve the old vines planted by his father. About 7% of the original vines have been lost; these are torn out and replanted one-by-one, vine productivity and economics be damned. In caring for the old vines at the estate, Jason has also preserved some unique varieties that perform well in Oregon apart from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, grapes like Trousseau, Pinot Gris, Chasselas and Pinot Meunier. Hoping to prove that wines could not only be grown in Oregon but age gracefully in bottle, David Lett set aside his own bottlings each vintage, ultimately amassing a prolific library. Jason spent a decade developing a Cellar Certification system to evaluate the older bottles in the collection. Wines are tasted as lots, re-blended, re-bottled and freshly corked. In preserving Oregon’s viticultural heritage, Eyrie has opened a window for what sustainability could look like in the future. As climate change brings more erratic weather, and now wildfires, to the state, the role of the winemaker will change. It won’t be enough just to make wine. Winemakers will need to experiment with new rootstocks and grape varieties, and more seriously consider their water use and impact on the land. The philosophy of grape growing at Eyrie—own-rooted, dry-farmed vines planted in land that is not worked or watered—may inform a more responsible agricultural future.

Anyone familiar with Oregon wines will have heard the name David Lett, founder of Eyrie Vineyards. In his mid-20s, David graduated from UC Davis and went searching for a site outside California to plant Burgundian grape varieties — an approach to vineyard establishment his son and second-generation winemaker, Jason Lett, says might now be considered “backwards in a way, to choose a grape before a place.” That place was the Dundee Hills, now the epicenter of world-class Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley. The first vines were planted in 1965. In 1979, Eyrie entered the world stage after the 1975 South Block Pinot Noir, Eyrie’s first reserve bottling, placed among the top 10 in a worldwide blind-tasting organized by the French publication Gault-Millau. Current production is about 10,000 cases annually.