Nose
A rocking nose of chocolate, smoked meat, ground pepper, Asian spices, and spring flower. Deep-pitched aromas of cherry preserves, blackberry, fruitcake, exotic flowers and incense on the highly perfumed nose.
Palate
This might be the best Bone Rock I have ever made. Do you
really need me to say more? Because I could wax poetic about
this wine all day long…
It hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a plush, sexy texture, good acidity, and a great, great finish.
Stains the palate with concentrated black/blue fruit liqueur, allspice, licorice and violet pastille flavors enlivened by a smoky mineral nuance that builds through the midpalate.
Conveys a suave blend of richness and vivacity and betrays no rough edges. Appealingly sweet and expansive on the strikingly long, focused finish, which features resonating dark berry and floral notes and subtly chewy tannins.
Growing Conditions
The Bone Rock blend comes from the Bone Rock block of James Berry Vineyard. It is a steep terrace of old head trained Syrah vines on a south facing slope. We unearthed fossilized whale bones when we terraced it and then needed to use jack hammers to plant the vines.
During the 2017 growing season California was served an
impressive heat wave that arrived at the wrong time, when the
fruit was getting close, but definitely not there yet. We were
faced with two options. Our first option was to pick the fruit that
was starting to shrivel from the heat. Fruit with numbers saying
the sugars were getting too high, acids were too strong, and
tannins were too green. The second option was to let it ride.
However, you can’t predict the weather and could potentially
loose the whole crop. A huge gamble. Well, we rolled the dice
and let everything hang. Then we proceeded to bite our nails
and watch the weather. Eventually the heat stopped and we
ended up losing a portion of our crop, maybe 15%, but the
remaining 85% was awesome.
Winemaking
We had to spend a lot of time on
the sorting table removing the damaged portions of the clusters,
but it was all worthwhile. The wines are delicious! The 2017s
definitely have a riper aromatic than the 2016s, but I rather
enjoy that. The tannins are incredibly soft and smooth, making
them very open and approachable in their youth. I like to think
that the 2016s will ultimately be the better wines, but for the first
5, maybe 8 years of their lives, the 2017s might bring more
pleasure, and bringing pleasure is what this is all about!!!
Our wines are never racked off their lees and are bottled unfined and unfiltered.
- Released: January 2021
Appearance
Deep purple-colored.
