Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Lastly, the inky colored 2013 Syrah Bien Nacido gives up lots of peppery herbs, mineral, smoked meat and black fruits in a medium to full-bodied, fresh, yet concentrated and focused style. Incorporating 2% Viognier and fermented with 40% whole clusters, it spent 18 months in 30% new French oak before being bottled unfiltered. Give bottles 2-3 years and drink over the following decade.
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Wine & Spirits
Trey Fletcher makes this wine from a west-facing hillside block planted in 1995 at California’s original cool-climate syrah site, cofermenting the syrah with a touch of viognier. It’s a wine with energy to burn, its supercharged hibiscus and peppercorn scents becoming more intense as it takes on air, melding with the subtle richness of the wine’s oak and its umami-driven black-olive character. As it expands toward warmer purple fruit tones, it maintains a firm, stony center.
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Wine Enthusiast
Roasted beef, chipped asphalt and black currant conspire for a very deep and brooding but not overly powerful nose on this bottling from winemaker Trey Fletcher. The palate pops with thyme, rosemary, dried flowers and pepper, with the tangy black plum fruit only emerging with patience. Built to last.
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.”
A lesser-known but elite AVA within the larger Santa Barbara district, the Santa Maria Valley AVA runs precisely west to east starting near the coast. The valley funnels cool, Pacific Ocean air to the vineyards more inland, allowing grapes a longer hang time to ripen evenly and achieve their full potential by harvest time. Combined with minimal rainfall, consistent warm sunshine, and well-drained soils, it is an ideal environment for grape growing.
Many of the wineries here are small and highly respected, having established a reputation in the 1970s and 80s for producing excellent Central Coast wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. More recently, Syrah has also proven quite successful in the region. Many vineyards are owned by growers who sell their grapes to other wineries, so it is common to see the same vineyard name on bottlings from different wineries. Bien Nacido Vineyard is perhaps the best-known and most prestigious.