David Lett dies at 69; pioneering Oregon winemaker
David Lett, a pioneering winemaker who proved that the climate of Oregon's Willamette Valley was ideal for growing pinot noir grapes, has died. He was 69.
Lett, dubbed Papa Pinot for having paved the way for the area's thriving wine industry and helping to establish its global reputation for quality, died of heart failure Thursday at his home in Dundee, Ore., his son Jason said.
Against the advice of his professors in the viticulture and enology program at UC Davis, Lett arrived in the Willamette Valley in 1965, armed with a bachelor's degree and 3,000 vine cuttings.
The Pacific Northwest had been dismissed as being too cold and wet for cultivating wine grapes. But within 15 years, the wines Lett produced at Eyrie Vineyards beat the best French chateaux in international competition.
Today, the region just southwest of Portland is renowned for its exceptional Pinot Noirs.
"He was certainly a visionary who saw Oregon as an opportunity for Pinot Noir and some of the cool-climate grapes," Dick Ponzi, a veteran winemaker who established his vineyards in the Willamette Valley only a few years after Lett, said in an interview Saturday.
"He was dedicated to making the best wines, and was very meticulous that way."
Born in Chicago in 1939, Lett grew up in Utah and earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy at the University of Utah in 1961.
Bound for dental school, he got sidetracked on a visit to Napa Valley and, captivated by the fledgling winemaking scene, enrolled at UC Davis and traveled to France to learn all he could about wine.
After graduating from Davis, Lett found his way to Oregon.
In his search for a location that closely matched that of the traditional Burgundy region of France, he discovered a climate just cool enough to allow for a long growing season and a harvest timed to the fruit's peak ripeness.
In California, most winemakers were finding success with warm-weather grapes such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot.
But Lett was aiming for something more delicate and restrained than those big, bold red varietals when he planted pinot noir and pinot gris on 20 hilly acres in Dundee in 1966.
That same year he got married and made ends meet by selling textbooks.
He and his wife, Diana, converted an old turkey processing plant in McMinnville into their winery at a time when most valley farmers tended fruit or nut orchards. The company was named for the hawk nests crowning some nearby pine trees.
