Winemaker Notes
While the grapes for Patrina are raised with the same detail and attentiveness as the rest of the vineyards and then fermented open top with indigenous yeast, gentle pump overs and a few punch downs once soft, it is bottled unfined and unfiltered after 'just' 22 months in barrel to preserve its youthful exuberance. It offers all the density and concentration folks have come to expect from their reds with black and blue fruits, mineral notes, and flowers.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bottled in January of 2023, the 2020 Syrah Patrina opens with iodine and cassis, taking time to blossom with scents of tar, blueberry candy and peppermint patty. The palate is full-bodied and highly polished with abundant, velvety tannins, bursts of mouthwatering acidity and a surprisingly ethereal finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Moving to the 2020 reds and the only one tasted out of bottle, the 2020 Patrina sports a deep purple hue as well as a massive bouquet of ripe darker berry fruits, peppery herbs, and violets. It's full-bodied, wonderfully textured, has ripe tannins, and is just a killer bottle of wine to drink over the coming 7-8 years. If you've never had a wine from Alban, give this a whirl.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
California’s coolest wine growing area, Edna Valley excels in the production of high quality Central Coast wines like Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Rhône Blends and aromatic white wines. It has a cool Mediterranean climate and an incredibly long growing season, giving late-ripening varieties plenty of opportunity to develop great phenolic complexity.
Its northwest to southeast orientation creates a direct path for cool Pacific air and fog to penetrate the valley from the Los Osos and Morro Bay area inwards. Low hillsides of both calcareous and volcanic soils are home to much of the vineyard acreage of the Edna Valley.