100% Pinot Blanc

Food pairings: Oysters and other raw seafood, crudo and raw dishes, shellfish, and fresh goat cheese and feta.

Winemaking: The grapes are picked by hand, destemmed and pressed, and the juice is run to small stainless steel tanks to ferment and age. After a full, native malolactic fermentation the wine rests on its lees for 11 months, three to four times longer than most commercial Pinot Blancs, giving a light, creamy texture while staying crisp, fruity and complex; it was bottled in August 2024. 2023 was a dynamic year: a cold, dry early spring, heavy April rains, a warm and dry summer with cool nights, a brief August heat spike refreshed by late-month rains, and dry, mild harvest weather in September.

Vineyards and terroir: When Alsatian clones of Pinot Blanc became available in Oregon in the late 1980s, Eyrie planted a small test plot in its Sisters Vineyard in the Dundee Hills, in 1991; the block was doubled in the late 1990s. The Pinot Blanc is grown with the same care usually given to Pinot Noir. All of the estate vineyards are certified organic and farmed with regenerative no-till methods, without irrigation or added fertilizer, relying on a healthy network of soil life to nourish the vines.

Family and history: David Lett planted the first vines of the modern Willamette Valley on February 22, 1965, bringing cuttings north from California, and with his wife Diana established The Eyrie Vineyards on a former orchard in the Dundee Hills, home to Oregon's first Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. Their son Jason Lett returned as winemaker in 2005 and carries on the family's gentle, hands-on approach in the vineyard and restrained winemaking in the cellar.

In the pictures: Second-generation winemaker Jason Lett at harvest in the Eyrie vineyards; spring in one of Eyrie's organically farmed estate vineyards; and old barrels in the Eyrie cellar (photos courtesy of The Eyrie Vineyards).