David Lett was born in Chicago in 1939, and he graduated from the University of Utah in 1961. After a stint in the Coast Guard Reserve, he planned to attend dental school at the University of California, Davis. On his way to Davis for an interview, he made a detour through the pastoral Napa Valley, where he stopped at Chateau Souverain, the leading Napa winery of the time, run by Lee Stewart.  “He was absolutely floored by what Lee was doing,” Jason Lett recalled, “and he asked Lee for a job right there.”  His parents were not so thrilled, but agreed that if he returned to school for a professional degree, he could pursue winemaking. He did attend Davis, and emerged in 1963 with a degree in viticulture.  After traveling through Europe visiting wine regions, he returned to the United States in love with the pinot noir grape, with the conviction that it could succeed only in a marginal environment. A taste of some particularly good strawberries grown in the Willamette Valley convinced him that it was the place for pinot noir. He moved there in 1965.  While searching for the right site for a vineyard, Mr. Lett supported himself by selling college textbooks. The job permitted him to drive around the state, and whenever he saw a likely area, Jason Lett said, he would pull over to take soil samples. In the summer of 1966 he found his vineyard, and he also found a wife. David and Diana Lett spent their honeymoon planting grape vines, Jason Lett said.  In addition to his wife and son Jason, Mr. Lett is survived by another son, James, of Dundee. Jason Lett took over as winemaker at Eyrie in 2005.  While pinot noir was his passion, Mr. Lett was also the first winemaker in the United States to produce pinot gris, now the second leading grape in Oregon, after pinot noir.  Although Mr. Lett at first derided his 1970 vintage of pinot noir, he decided later that he had been mistaken. With time, the wine he thought thin and wan turned complex and delicious.  “We had a bottle with Christmas dinner last year,” Jason Lett said, “and it was fabulous.”  A version of this article appears in print on October 14, 2008, on Page B13 of the New York edition with the headline: David Lett, 69, Oregon Wine Pioneer. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Mr. Lett planted the first commercial pinot noir vineyard in Oregon, opening the way for what became a thriving pinot noir industry.