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David Lett thought he had planted Pinot Blanc in the original Eyrie Vineyard back in 1965. It turns out UC Davis made a mistake (not unusual at the time), and the vines they sent were, in fact, Melon de Bourgogne. So, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Letts received real clones of Pinot Blanc from Alsace and planted them across three blocks in their lowest site, Sisters Vineyard. Already home to Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, this addition completed the Pinot family plantings, hence the name Sisters.
The fruit is handpicked, destemmed, pressed and sent to small stainless-steel tanks for fermentation and maturation. As with the Pinot Gris, Eyrie ages its Pinot Blanc for three to four times longer than most others in the region, and the wine undergoes full malolactic conversion. The wine was bottled after 11 months in barrel on lees. Jason Lett tells us the extended period on lees serves a dual purpose: pulling richness into the wine, while the fruity esters bound up in the yeast hulls get released back into the wine during the later summer months, adding bright, fresh fruit character back to the wine. So, you get a sense of fullness and freshness at relatively low alcohol levels. There’s a reason Eyrie’s Blanc is considered a New World benchmark.