The winery in McMinville in the US state of Oregon was founded in 1966 by David and Diana Lett. The name came from a hawk that Diana saw flying up to the top of a tall fir tree, where it had built its eyrie. A falcon also adorns the bottle label. Lett is considered one of Oregon's winegrowing pioneers, because he was one of the first to dare to rely fully on European varieties and was the first to plant Pinot Noir and later Pinot Gris in Oregon. The Utah-born doctor of philosophy enrolled at the University of California to study viticulture. He then spent a year in Northern Europe studying the cultivation methods for Pinot Noir. Still in California, he studied the climatological data of the last five decades of the Willamette Valley in Oregon and decided to plant Pinot Noir there against the explicit advice of the specialists at the university.
The first vintage produced, 1970, already caused a sensation. At a blind tasting organised by the Burgundian winemaker Robert Drouhin in Paris (France) in 1979, his Pinot Noir 1975 came second only 0.3 points behind Drouhin's Chambolle-Musigny. David Lett thus became internationally famous. This aroused Drouhin's curiosity for Oregon and later prompted him to found his own winery there called Domaine Drouhin. The vineyards in the Red Dundee Hills cover 20 hectares of vines. They are planted with the varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir. The house speciality is mainly the red wines from Pinot Noir, whereby according to Lett's philosophy, the wines are vinified in such a way that they have less alcohol content and tannins with a lighter garnet colour.
