Winemaker Notes
Deep, dark, and brooding. Dare I say seductive? Black plum, exotic flowers, grilled meats, sage, and wet earth. Finishes bold and lovely with purity. This wine is dynamic!
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This has impressive focus, depth and precision. Really complex pepper, spice-dusted blood plums, cocoa powder and blackberries. The tannins are super succulent, firm but not aggressive. The depth and fluid power here is staggering. Intensely structured and deeply flavored with blood plums, cocoa powder and graphite. Big on wow factor, this is a great wine that needs another 3-4 years to build out to full potential.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Syrah Olsen Brothers Vineyard is also superb, offering up beautiful aromas of plums, dark chocolate, asphalt, violets and grilled meat that wouldn't be out of place in the Northern Rhône. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, rich and savory, with fine-grained tannins, a sapid core of fruit and a long, saline finish. Follow this complex and sophisticated Syrah over the coming decade.
-
Jeb Dunnuck
The 100% varietal (all Phelps clone) 2015 Syrah Olsen Brother's Vineyard sports a deep purple color to go with a minty, tobacco, currants, and darker fruit-driven profile. Deep, rich and full-bodied, it has notable freshness and purity, fine tannin, and a great finish.
-
Wine Enthusiast
The aromas draw you into the glass with notes of green herb, freshly peeled orange, raspberry, smoked meat and mineral. The palate is reserved in style but still quite flavorful, with seamless smoked-meat flavors that linger on the long, long finish. Lighter styled, it’s all about subtlety and nuance but it delivers both in abundance.
Editors' Choice -
Wine Spectator
Brawny but well-structured, with generous blueberry, bitter chocolate and garrigue flavors that power toward big but resolved tannins. Best from 2021 through 2025.
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.”
As the first recognized wine-growing region in the Pacific Northwest, Yakima Valley is centrally located within Washington’s vast Columbia Valley. The region also includes Washington’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines, Otis Vineyard, planted in 1957, and Harrison Hill Vineyard, planted in 1963. Yakima Valley contains three smaller sub-regions: Rattlesnake Hills, Red Mountain, and Snipes Mountain and is ideal for both red and white wine production. In fact, Yakima Valley is Washington’s most diverse region, boasting more than 40 different grape varieties over about one hundred miles.
The cooler parts of the valley are home to almost half of the Chardonnay and Riesling produced in the state! Both are made in a wide range of styles depending on the conditions of the vineyard site.
But its warmer locations yield a large proportion of Washington’s best Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The finest Yakima Valley reds are jam-packed full of red cherry, currant, raspberry or blackberry fruit, as well as cocoa, herb, spice and savory notes, and exhibit a supple texture, great body, focus and length.