Winemaker Notes
We have been working with this vineyard for over 12 years now, taking over the farming lease in 2013 and continue to farm to the organic standard. We grafted over an acre to a Chave Selection in 2013, to add some additional diversity to this Syrah bottling. At six miles from the ocean at 1300-1400 ft, this mid-elevation windswept ridgetop site produces a distinctive and very elegant cool-climate Syrah. The constant maritime winds coupled with thin marginal soils of oceanic sedimentary origins lends itself to naturally lower yields. This translates into greater intensity at lower sugar levels and firm acid structure. The aromas immediately remind of a classic cool-climate Syrah with distinctive cracked pepper notes, blue and black fruits, game, white pepper, black tea, and olives. This is a finely structured wine and elegant wine that delivers distinctive pedigree consistently.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Serious underlying fruit concentration and an intense mineral and black-pepper aroma give this full-bodied wine an imposing approach. It shows deep and dark fruit flavors, a fascinating burnt sage and burnt orange aspect, very firm tannins and bone-dry balance. It's impressive now and will be delicious after 2025.
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Wine & Spirits
When it was first poured, I liked this wine, clearly built for Rhône-heads with its cracked-green-peppercorn spice and porky intensity. But then I fell in love with it the next day. As it opens, it turns stemmy in the best way, and races, fragrant, rosy, with the scent of freshly turned earth and tart red fruit. I could drink this all night, starting with a thick-cut pork chop, then with aged Comté, then just on its own. Valenti Ranch, an east-facing ridge six miles from the Pacific, consistently grows some of California’s best syrahs (I’ve scored Drew’s 2008 and 2011 95 points or better; Luke Sykora scored the 2014 at the same level). Jason Drew makes this wine without added yeasts and with 50 percent whole clusters, cofermenting the fruit with a little viognier. Get some.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Drew Syrah advances the quality of this grape in California. TASTING NOTES: This wine offers an explosion of black fruit aromas and flavors. It stays elegant in the finish. Pair it with slowly-braised beef dishes. (Tasted: September 26, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
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.