Nose
Wafting from the glass with notes of creamy cassis, blackberries, bay leaf, rich soil and dried flowers. Intensely perfumed dark berry liqueur, Moroccan spice, licorice and floral pastille aromas are complemented by hints of musky herbs and pipe tobacco.
Palate
On the palate, it's full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, with immense concentration, ripe balancing acids and a fine-grained, stony chassis of tannin.
Palate-coating, youthfully primary black and blue fruit, mocha and spicecake flavors show impressive power as well as vivacity thanks to a spine of bracing acidity. The floral and spice qualities repeat emphatically on an extremely long, penetrating finish shaped by solid, mounting 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.
The Bone Rock has finally returned!!!
Sorry about the hiatus, but that’s farming for you. I’m not going
to waste much space telling you how amazing this baby is (it is),
because unfortunately there isn’t much to go around. Four
measly barrels is all that we were able to eek out of this rocky
site. Thankfully the rains of ’16 have brought production back up
to regular levels. Since this is an extremely rocky site, these
vines took the drought of ’13-’15 seriously, and decided they
didn’t want to give us any fruit! It’s OK, it needed a little rest, I
get it, no worries. (I’m looking out my window at the Bone Rock Terraces right now. I find myself talking to them quite often.
Maybe I’m going a little crazy?)
Harvest
In. In 2015, yields were less than one ton per acre.
Bottling
Due to limited production only bottled in magnums.
Winemaking
2016 is quite possibly the
best vintage we have made. The stars aligned, and everything is
just right. The perfect amount of fruit richness, the right amount
of ripe tannins, the perfect amount of acidity, and incredible
balance, all wrapped up with some nice freshness and aromatic
intensity. We knew we had some great material right from the
get go, and used a little less new oak than normal to let the
explosive fruit and earthiness show itself properly. I am very
happy with these wines!
Syrah was co-fermented with the Roussanne.
Our wines are never racked off their lees and are bottled unfined and unfiltered.
- Released: January 2019
Aging
Aging with with puncheons instead of smaller barrels, and they're complemented by amphorae and foudres.
Appearance
Youthful purple.
