Bottled only ten days before I tasted it in July – late even by their standards because, says Jason Lett, “it was very tannic and tough early on” and he left in in tank from November 2012 – Eyrie’s “regular” estate 2011 Pinot Noir is light enough in color that some Pinotphiles may be put off. Its recent bottling didn’t cause it to be inexpressive – far from it. But what it does express is extreme and unusual, so much so that I can’t recommend buying it without first trying it. A fascination amalgam of sauteed wild mushrooms, prosciutto, tomato, and walnut oil fills my head rapidly with notions of how I might employ this at table, while prompting a question I generally delight in finding myself asking about a wine (but seldom do outside the realm of Pinot), namely, “How can this have come from grapes?” That said, I also catch what seems to me a whiff of Penicillin in the nose, a fungal genus that’s usually death to wine grapes. Will it further and adversely affect the wine? That I can’t say. For now, its tweaking of the nose is at most mildly disconcerting. Juicy and only faintly grainy – however savage its tannins might have seemed before bottling – this finishes with an emphasis on pungently smoky, piquant, and saline (if only mildly mouthwatering) notes. I’m skeptical as to whether it would be one to hold for more than a couple of years; but, as intimated, I could imagine getting some serious mileage from it meantime ... and naturally it might live to make a fool of me.
Jason Lett showed me another exciting group of wines this year that combined fidelity to the esteemed and time-tested traditions established by his dad with innovative experimentation. “With our organic approach,” says Lett, “we always do a lot of leaf-pulling, and we’re out there on the tractor an awful lot; and that paid dividends in 2010 and 2011.” As noted in my general introduction to this report, he professed himself thrilled with the back-to-back opportunities of these cool, late-harvest seasons “to make a vintage from the ‘70s again.’” That said there were some admitted drawbacks to 2011 conditions here: first and foremost that – in contrast to many Willamette vintners – Lett experienced very low yields. Nor did he feel that 2011 had in it a suitable separate South Block Pinot bottling; and there will also be no “Daphne” reserve, since that high-elevation location was too marginal for optimal ripening of Pinot, which consequently went into rose. I had the profound pleasure this July to again taste some older Eyrie vintages, which led to discussion of their care and commercialization. A careful sensory examination is being undertaken of the estate’s still vast total stocks of older wine – David Lett typically set aside double digits (up to 75 for South Block!) in cases of nearly everything he released – and the bottles that perform up to snuff used to systematically top off one another before re-corking under scrupulously controlled and optimal circumstances. (Up to 600 bottles a day can be rendered this way.) So as these re-corked treasures are sold-down – and nearly all of them have or will be given a winery retail price – oenophiles who purchase them will also be buying into an unprecedented degree of assurance about their quality: a nearly unique opportunity which I’m surprised Lett and his colleagues have not chosen to more explicitly explain and promote. (For extensive updates on this historic estate and Jason Lett’s evolution as a winemaker, consult my Issue 202 report. I have once again, for listing and database purposes, treated the wines bottled under Jason Lett’s own original “Black Cap” label – whose name refers to the eponymous varieties of chickadee, morel, and raspberry – as a sub-label of Eyrie, since they are made and marketed together, and in some instances sourced from the estate’s vines.)
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