Reign of Terroir

Admin What are your earliest memories of winemaking with your father at The Eyrie Vineyards?

Jason Lett Starting when I was 3 or 4 I sometimes got to spend the night at the winery with Dad during harvest. At that time Dad was using a hand operated basket press that had to be taken apart and the press cake broken up in order to be pressed again. This was after a long day of picking, and pressing went into the wee hours. I would goof around, “working,” generally getting underfoot. Dad always let me feel like I was actually helping.
 
I would finally go to sleep on the old leather couch in the crush office, wrapped up in his sleeping bag. Dad would finish up late and drive us home in the old flatbed truck we used to haul the harvest. The sound of that straight six motor made a nice coda to the day.
 
As a youngster what tasks were you given in the vineyard and winery?
 
JL In the winery my favorite job was punching caps - this is the pigeage where you submerge the skins back into the fermenting roil. It’s still my favorite job - it is the most revealing contact with the grape, even more than drinking the wine.
 
In the vineyard, I did a lot of “suckering” - preserving the form of the vine by removing shoots from the trunks. The shoots are called “suckers” but I always wondered who exactly the sucker was. Still, the job goes to the short and flexible so as a kid I fit the job description. The Chardonnay was always the worst - it throws a lot of shoots and the rows are LONG, so it seems by the time you’ve come to the end of the row it’s time to do it again.
 
At what age did you begin to work the Crush?
 
JL Define “work!” Kids LOVE making wine - it’s playing with your food on a major scale. You get everything covered with juice and then spray it down with a waterhose. For a kid, what could be better?

Sometimes I had a hard time believing that I could actually get paid 25 cents an hour to play with grapes.

I still do.

 
Were you always interested in winemaking?
 
JL It was always background, and always interesting, but it was also always Dad’s thing. As a teenager I certainly put more distance between myself and the winery. Still, I worked summers in the vineyard and made enough to save up to travel to Europe.
 
As a teen you lived and worked summers in Burgundy. Can you tell us a little about the experience? What kinds of lessons did you learn?
 
JL Again… “work?” I went over with my folks when I was 13 and met a lot of great people for the first time. I have a great memory of tasting with the Potels. I was welcomed into the cellars with my dad and put through my paces. I was asked for my opinion more often than I deserved. I had already mastered spitting, but there was a certain floaty sensation mounting the cellar steps for lunch.
 
I went back to Burgundy again, alone, when I was 17. I went to work with some family friends in the cellars and in the wine trade. There were great opportunities but they were pretty much lost on me. The French education system separates kids into tracks - artisan or academic - early on. So all the kids my age in the cellars were way better trained and way more focused than I was, and the adults were so much more sophisticated than a country bumpkin like me. It was pretty intimidating, and truthfully it put me off winemaking as a career choice.
 
I wound up soaking up quite a bit by osmosis, fortunately. Of course, I look back now at what an incredible opportunity that was and wish I could have been less ambivalent. But I’m also glad that I gave myself the opportunities to explore different fields that I later did. If at 17 I was completely convinced I wanted to be a winemaker I’d probably be pretty bored with making wine now.
 
You took a degree in Botany from the University of New Mexico. You also were a research asst. at Oregon State University. What was the principle focus of your research?
 
JL At the University of New Mexico the lab I worked for was trying to get a handle on the incredibly intricate strategies that plants use to time the germination of their seeds. In a demanding ecosystem like the New Mexican desert these strategies can drive the dynamics of entire communities of plants.
 
We spent a lot of time in pristine field sites, collecting seeds, taking measurements… it was wonderful work. Exacting. Scientists have to be great craftspeople. There were aesthetic benefits as well. After a good rain, everything would explode into bloom. Made you feel very… connected, being engaged with that level of intensity.
 
At OSU I worked in the “small fruits” program - blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries mostly, but also Oregon quirks like Loganberries and Marionberries.

We did variety evaluation, experimental trellising and training techniques, as well as the day-to-day tractor work. I also helped survey raspberry fields in the northern Willamette Valley. This was terrific - I gained a real appreciation for the tenacity of the farmers around here and their belief in the quality of Oregon fruit.

As anyone who’s had an Oregon strawberry can attest, the Willamette Valley produces stunning flavors.

 
I am glad to see that consumers are wising up and reaching around the packers, straight back to the farms. The locavore movement is really fantastic.
 
My hope is that some day people will argue just as vehemently about the provenance and terroir expressed by what is on their plate as they do by what is in their wineglass.
 
Would you tell us a little about your first solo wine, the 2002 BlackCap?
 
JL Having grown up around winemaking I felt pretty comfortable that I knew what it was all about, and still very ambivalent about it. I had established a career in another field - what did I need to make wine for?
 
But I had a friend, John Davidson of Bernard Machado Wines, who had both vineyards and a winery and offered me the loan of both if I wanted to try making wine. I put him off for almost a year but he was really insistent. He offered me complete control, complete access to his vineyards, even down to picking the rows I wanted to use and the day of harvest. Same in the winery - John let me decide everything, from selecting the barrels to dictating how to wash the hoses.
It was a true act of generosity and the experience was absolutely transformative. With that first vintage of 66 cases I realized that winemaking was completely different when you are dragging the hoses in the service of your own wine.
 
It turned out that winemaking encapsulated everything I loved about ecology - uncovering the interaction of plants with place - just experienced in a much more direct way. As an ecologist I spent a lot of time sifting through different kinds of statistical tests, trying to find the one that separates the pattern in the data from the noise. But making wine: Bam! The pattern is evident, right there on your tongue.
 
Alice Feiring, author of the wine blog Veritas In Vino, has praised Black Cap. She wrote it “had the guts to let the earth (and not just the fruit) shine through”.  What is your take on wine critics? Is it possible they have too great a hand in driving wine styles? I’m thinking especially of high alcoholic fruit bombs so much favored by Robert Parker.
 
JL Critics say nice things sometimes and cruel things sometimes. Alice said a VERY nice thing.
 
Either way, if you love it you will keep making wine no matter what the critics say. It helps to be driven by your vines, rather than any “style” you’re trying to achieve. If you express the vintage and express the site and keep the wines clean, then you’ve done your job.
 
Of course good reviews buoy your spirits and bad ones bring you down, and sales trends tend to follow what the critics say. For a lot of the larger wineries this must breed a pragmatic approach about what must be done in order to pay the bills.
 
I have been so incredibly fortunate to have my Dad be my role model. He is very Taoist in his approach to winemaking - do not compromise the expression of the vineyard. Above all he’s taught me, keep your ego out of it. Once you use the wine to build a monument to your ego, it goes dead, it becomes beverage.
 
You then went to work at Bishop Creek Vineyards. What possibilities did you see there that so excited you?
 
JL Bishop Creek Vineyard is a laboratory - it is a very diverse site, makes some of the most distinctive wines in the Yamhill-Carlton district, and the owners were really cool to work with. They let me immediately transition to sustainable vineyard practices and made some big investments in new equipment. It was a great place to learn more about the intricacies of growing Pinot noir and increased my appreciation for Pinot’s ability to express the nuances of site.
 
Here in California many vineyard managers and winemakers are sometimes instructed to produce the house ’style’ even if it is at odds with their better judgement. Decisions made for them might include the use of 100% new oak, picking at very high brix, micro-ox and reverse osmosis. Do the wineries in Oregon generally give a freer hand to winemakers they hire? Are they receptive to change?
 
JL Kenneth, I can’t answer this question. I don’t have enough experience to make the comparison.
 
It is fair to say Oregon leads the rest of the nation with respect to Green, Organic practices. Of course, your distiguished father, David Lett, was a pioneer in this respect, and in whose footsteps you follow. What is it about Oregon that has allowed eco-friendly practices to flourish?
 
JL Dad was deeply influenced by the writings of Rachel Carson. He came to Oregon with the goal of growing grapes without toxic chemicals - a pretty radical idea at the time. He describes his Entomology class at Davis as “here’s the bug, here’s how to kill it.”
 
Many of those coming after my Dad were also looking for new ways of doing things… that’s why they were coming to Oregon - so we started with a fresh sheet of paper when it came to viticulture.
 
All of us in Oregon were lucky to have strong ties to Europe - we weren’t exactly fumbling in the dark. We had strong relationships with the Swiss, especially two researchers from the Federal Research Station in Wadenswil, Werner Koblet and Ernst Boller.
 
Koblet showed us how to train the vines to maximize ripeness and minimize disease pressure in a cold climate, things that have become standard worldwide, like leaf-pulling in the fruit zone.
 
Boller created the grape growing standards for the International Organization for Biological Control. His guidelines form the basis for Oregon’s LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) program.
 
Koblet and Boller’s work and our personal friendships with them gave Oregon a strong foundation in sustainable growing.
 
Was it written in the stars that you would one day take over at Eyrie Vineyards?
 
JL Good lord, no. Dad loves making wine so much… it was impossible to imagine him wanting to pass that on while he could still run a winepress. There was a time when I thought I would have my label and he would have his, but he really surprised me when he asked me to come back as winemaker. That brought a huge, shocking realization to me that he and I were both maturing.
 
David ‘Papa Pinot’ Lett is quite the determined man, an iconoclast and brilliant winegrower. Despite already having proved yourself a very capable winegrower was there some trepidation when he asked you to become Eyrie’s winemaker and vineyard manager in 2005?
 
JL Trepidation my part, certainly. Dad’s too, probably, but he’s doing a good job of hiding it. He has continually astonished me with his approval of what I’m doing at Eyrie, and for my part I take the legacy of his winegrowing approach - honor the grape, trust nature over technology, keep your ego out of it - very seriously.
 
In late 2006 I was putting together blends for the 2005 Reserve Pinot. This is a wine that has to age for decades, the best barrels from the oldest vines. But within that blend there’s an opportunity to play with shading, from strawberry to wet earth. I came up with something pretty radically to the earthy side, but Dad loved it. It’s a bit different than the Reserve wines of the past but Dad saw what I was doing and told me to take it forward. That was great.
 
Eyrie Vineyards is not Organic certified yet has always been sustainably farmed. Why not be certified?
 
JL Certification is basically licensing a trademark. The trademark is supposed to do all the work for you - it’s a way to communicate to the buyer. The certifying entity is supposed to help tell your story.

Having that tag on your bottle is a short cut for talking to people directly about what you do.

There are a lot of aspects to what we do that are uncommon - no irrigation, no ripping or tilling the soil, things that are allowed under the existing certification schemes that we don’t necessarily agree with.

I’m not saying we’d never certify, just that we don’t want to be lumped into a set of practices that we may not agree with 100%.

So, if we do certify, we’d STILL have to explain what we do that makes us unique. So there’s not much point, is there?

 
Could you tell us a little of how Eyrie’s vineyards are maintained, how Eyrie sustains biodiversity, beneficial insect populations, the health of the soil?
 
JL Hmm, positivity through the word “No.” No herbicides. No insecticides. No irrigation. No synthetic chemicals. We’ve been doing it that way since year zero.

The way we treat soil is unique, born out of a lot of reverence for lowly critters.

 
Soil is a living thing, composed of the particles of dirt and all the living things that hold it together. It is a delicate balance of bacteria, fungus, algae, insects, plants. Mechanical manipulation of the soil upsets the balance.
 
Basically, once a vineyard is established (about 8 years after planting,) we don’t till. We mow the grass between and under the rows, but we don’t like to see exposed dirt.
 
Grapevines are very dependant on their relationships with soil fungi for nutrients. When you till the soil you change the balance of the populations, throw the balance out of wack.

I saw the point of this early on. When I came back to Eyrie I took a bunch of soil nutrient samples. The vineyards hadn’t been fertilized in years, and I was expecting to see big deficiencies.

When I got the lab results back, I was shocked: there was no problem. I took the analysis to the local organic amendment expert (who also happens to sell fertilizer) and he told me the soils were fine, no additions needed.

 
Where, in those decades, were the vines getting their nutrients? From the ground, from their deep relationships with soil organisms. So we tread lightly.
 
What changes if any have you brought to Eyrie these past few years?
 
JL I’m not consciously trying to bring any changes. I’m using the same pieces of equipment I grew up with, making wine from the same vines, blending in the same way.
 
But in spite of that, change is inevitable. Wine is the expression of many, many tiny details. How tight you clamp a hose during racking can influence how much oxygen the wine picks up during transfer and in turn how the fruit is expressed. Topping barrels every 14 days creates a different wine than topping every 10. The sum of these little decisions is inevitably a different wine. Better? Worse? Time will tell. If I make enough bad decisions the wine will cellar poorly, if I make enough good decisions I’ll be drinking 2007 Eyrie in my dotage.
 
Is it your hope your children will become winemakers?
 
JL They’re winemakers now! My 4 year old loves to help at harvest, just like I did. And my 7 year old is getting ready to bottle her first wine - 6 cases worth. We walked through on a hot afternoon in September 06 and she tasted Pinot noir grapes from every single different clone and block in the old vineyard, and she chose her favorite rows.
 
We picked and crushed them for her. I gave her the options, and she decided wanted to play it safe and do a yeast inoculation instead of wild yeast. But she opted for an old-school champagne yeast instead of one of the new high tech ones. That’s my girl…
 
She’s done all her work by smell - she doesn’t care much for the taste, as of yet. That’s fine, this wine is her 21st. birthday present to herself. Right now, I’m her designated taster. I can’t wait for her Grandpa to try it, I think he will love it.
 
Future projects?
 
JL One vintage at time. I promise to keep it interesting.
 
Thank you, Jason.
 
Admin