Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Unabashedly warm and inviting in a Paso Robles mode, this syrah comes from vines planted in the early eighties. The wine is built on savory suite of aromas—tar, creosote, black pepper and carob—with velvety fine-grained tannins and a stalwart oak frame. A classic to cellar, then to pour with a grilled steak.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2018 Eberle Steinbeck Vineyard Syrah is attractive and fulfilling. TASTING NOTES: This wine brings beautiful aromas and flavors of black fruit, licorice, and spice to the fore. Try it with braised beef over egg noodles. (Tasted: February 8, 2021, San Francisco, CA)
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Jeb Dunnuck
Along the same lines, the 2018 Syrah Steinbeck Vineyard is a charming, well-made effort offering classy darker fruits and peppery herb aromatics, medium-bodied richness, sweet tannins, and a beautiful finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
Clean lines of char and iodine meet with crumpled red and purple flowers on the nose of this bottling. There's a firm texture that grips the palate immediately, then opens into an airy mouthfeel that offers flavors of plum and roasted black raspberry.
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Wine Spectator
Sleek and elegantly layered, with floral raspberry, licorice and spice flavors that build richness toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2026.
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.”
Paso Robles has made a name for itself as a source of supple, powerful, fruit-driven Central Coast wines. But with eleven smaller sub-AVAs, there is actually quite a bit of diversity to be found in this inland portion of California’s Central Coast.
Just east over the Santa Lucia Mountains from the chilly Pacific Ocean, lie the coolest in the region: Adelaida, Templeton Gap and (Paso Robles) Willow Creek Districts, as well as York Mountain AVA and Santa Margarita Ranch. These all experience more ocean fog, wind and precipitation compared to the rest of the Paso sub-appellations. The San Miguel, (Paso Robles) Estrella, (Paso Robles) Geneso, (Paso Robles) Highlands, El Pomar and Creston Districts, along with San Juan Creek, are the hotter, more western appellations of the greater Paso Robles AVA.
This is mostly red wine country, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel standing out as the star performers. Other popular varieties include Merlot, Petite Sirah, Petit Verdot, Syrah, Grenache and Rhône blends, both red and white. There is a fairly uniform tendency here towards wines that are unapologetically bold and opulently fruit-driven, albeit with a surprising amount of acidity thanks to the region’s chilly nighttime temperatures.