Palate
Full of dark blue fruits, gamey richness and hints of bright acidity, this wine straddles the line of intensity and delicacy. Toasted oak notes combine with wonderfully juicy tannins to create perfect lingering flavors.
Growing Conditions
The 2020 Syrah comes from Devil’s Canyon, otherwise known as Block 6. This block is planted on our steepest slope, containing nearly no topsoil and faces directly Southwest. While an unpleasant site to farm and harvest, it produces the most exhilarating fruit on our estate. The Grenache blended in comes from our head trained block 13 on the top of our Estate. This Syrah demonstrates the true potential of this vintage. A long veraison created a wide range of ripeness levels in the bunches, but with careful timing of the pick, a full expression of the vineyard and this varietal is captured in the bottle.
Winemaking
The Syrah for this vintage was de-stemmed and fermented in 3.5 ton open top concrete tanks. Twice daily pump overs were performed until 70% completion of fermentation. We then, changed to gentle punch downs to ease extraction of flavors for a total of 19 days on skins. The tanks were pressed and 45% racked into a new French Gamba and Fouially barrels. The remaining 55% was aged in neutral French barrels. Aged for 18 months with no racking and topped exclusively with Estate Grenache from block 14 to add a bit of lighter fruit to the overall structure. After racking, a bit more Estate Grenache has added to the final blend and was then bottled with no fining or filtration.
Appearance
Beautifully rich purple in color, this wine embodies the weight and depth our Estate is able to produce.
Food Pairing
Begging for braised spareribs.
