Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Third-generation landowner Steve Alden planted syrah on this windswept hilltop in 1999, the vines topping out at 2,200 feet. And Jason Drew, since he decamped from Santa Barbara to the Mendocino coast in 2005, has fashioned a number of dramatic syrahs from Alden’s vineyard. Over the years Drew has played with varying ripeness levels and percentages of whole bunches in his fermentations with syrah from the site; his evolving understanding of the vineyard paid off in 2013. This might be Drew’s best Perli syrah yet. It’s an alluring wine that’s as supple as velvet yet electrified by a beam of acidity, at once saturated with flavor and sharply etched. It feels like a tisane more than any kind of berry fruit, a cool wash of dark rose petals, rosemary, peppercorn and resinous lavender. Its transparent coastal pungency is irresistible.
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.”
Essentially a northern extension of the Sonoma Coast AVA but part of Mendocino County, Mendocino Ridge is one of the rare appellations defined by elevation only. The Mendocino Ridge AVA is reserved only for vineyards at or above 1,200 feet between the Anderson Valley and Pacific Ocean.