Winemaker Notes
Eyrie’s style is dry, medium-bodied and full-flavored and closely resembles Pinot blanc from Alsace. The wine undergoes natural temperature primary fermentation and full malolactic fermentation in stainless steel. In keeping with our hands-off winemaking style, this wine displays rich and broadly complex varietal aroma, clean and crisp flavors, and soft but bright texture.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Pinot Blanc offers lovely tones of beeswax, Meyer lemon, earth and nutty nuances on the nose. The medium-bodied palate is seamlessly fresh, rounded and textural with delicately styled fruits and a long, lifted finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a finesse wine, scented and flavored with apple skins as well as flesh. There are subtle suggestions of green pineapple and citrus, and the wine is balanced and quite refreshing. The overall impact lingers far beyond the immediate lightness of flavor.
Approachable, aromatic and pleasantly plush on the palate, Pinot Blanc is a white grape variety most associated with the Alsace region of France. Although its heritage is Burgundian, today it is rarely found there and instead thrives throughout central Europe, namely Germany and Austria, where it is known as Weissburgunder and Alto Adige where it is called Pinot Bianco. Interestingly, Pinot Blanc was born out of a mutation of the pink-skinned Pinot Gris. Somm Secret—Chardonnay fans looking to try something new would benefit from giving Pinot Blanc a try.
Home of the first Pinot noir vineyard of the Willamette Valley, planted by David Lett of Eyrie Vineyard in 1966, today the Dundee Hills AVA remains the most densely planted AVA in the valley (and state). To its north sits the Chehalem Valley and to its south, runs the Willamette River. Within the region’s 12,500 acres, about 1,700 are planted to vine on predominantly basalt-based, volcanic, Jory soil.