Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Incredibly northern Rhône-like, with beautiful raspberry, crushed flowers, smoked meats, and fireplace notes, the 2016 Syrah En Chamberlin Vineyard is full-bodied, fleshy, and incredibly sexy on the palate, with serious depth of fruit. It's a gorgeous, Côte Brune-like effort to drink over the coming 15-20 years.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Syrah en Chamberlin Vineyard has a black-fruited nose with dense aromatics that are heady and smoky. This has a big-shouldered expression on the palate, with a richly structured focus that seems to have no end. Robust and generous, the black-fruited core lingers on the extended finish with the weight of a masculine wine. A whole minute has passed, yet the dense and chewy expression remains on the palate with ripe tannins, black olives and smoked blackberries. With only 388 cases made for the world, it's your lucky day when you end up with some in your glass.
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James Suckling
This has a very expressive feel with a mix of sweet and savory notes, including leather, game, blackberries, pepper and a hint of balsamic. The palate has roundness that really charms and delivers a smooth, layered and curvaceously seductive feel. Spicy and meaty. Drink now or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Elegantly structured, yet plump with personality, showing expressive raspberry, bacon fat and crushed rock tones that glide on the long finish toward refined tannins
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.”
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.