The Humble Gourmand

Dear friends,

These last few glorious weeks of spring have found me back on Yankee soils, soaking up this verdant splendor – a bike ride in my lovely hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, drinking an illusory glass of lilacs, tulips, chirping soft winds, the perfume of spring – delighted to be back to my roots for a time. And thus, I celebrate this with an offering of the very best American wine I can think of.

The true spirit of anti-establishment artisanal American wine-making has been substantiated by the Lett family in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. It was David Lett, of The Eyrie Vineyards, in 1966, the first to plant Pinot Noir, Gris, Chardonnay, who, by which, developed the Willamette Valley as an internationally recognized wine region. As the original Eyrie vines are now over 40 years old, the style of wine has remained consistent: elegance, balance, coolness, nuance, tertiary aromas that are influenced by earth, rocks, minerals, nature, yeasts, the elements underfoot when you are out in the fields and forests, rich in herbaceous sweet fruit.

Some time ago, I was invited by the Lett family to join them on a vineyard tour. We walked beyond their white wooden house, enshrouded in pines, up over a hill along a trail, and came to a slope planted to vine. David and Jason brought several marvelous older vintages while Jason showed us in great detail how the vineyard works as an entire eco-system – the grasses, the worms, the buds and shoots, minimally disturbed, all work together to make the Eyrie fruit full of character and nuance, done in a spirit of authentic small-production. At that time, David was using his oxygen tank, but the enthusiasm he maintained as he described the first clearing and planting, those 40 some-odd years ago, had seemingly not waned. Sadly David passed in 2008, and it is now his ever-so dedicated son Jason (who holds an advanced degree in Botany) who now heads the property with as much passion as his father.

There does exist big, hot, extracted, clunky, monolith Pinot’s from the Willamette Valley nowadays (to please those wacky consumers) but these are certainly not those. Eyrie wines can age, and are well known by long-lived enthusiasts – I believe there remains two dusty bottles on the mantle of one of the greatest Burgundy domains – to commemorate the best of what has been drunk at that legendary table.

I decided to offer 2 wines – and allow you to choose a combo, or just pick one.

Eyrie Estate Pinot Noir 2006

Low yields, made from 20-year-old estate fruit, aged in neutral French oak for nearly two years. The wine rolls around the glass with such a soft perfumed ease – aromas of fall leaves, sweet earthy strawberry fruit, acidity to make it Burgundian in style – simply lovely – (92 points in the Wine Advocate, although if David were still with us, he would shoot me for using a score to talk about his wine). $31.99 per bottle

Eyrie Estate Pinot Gris 2007

Planted 40 years ago, aged in stainless steel on its yeast cells, natural malo-lactic fermentation (will explain upon request). The wine is so pure, so alive and vigorous, leesy, bakery smells meet shiso leaves, pine cones, just gorgeous! (A 91 from Tanzer). $19.99 per bottle

Slainte,

Mary
Thoreau Wine Society

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