Winemaker Notes
Inky with dark plum and black cherries balanced around aromas of smokiness, floral notes, and dark chocolate. It has big bracing tannins, yet wonderful elegant acid that gives focus to the wine.
We make this wine with indigenous yeast and malolactic cultures to showcase the identity of the wine through the unique place and time of the fruit's growth.
--Brennon Leighton, Winemaker
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Earthy undertones add an air of mystery to this juicy, stylish mouthful of raspberry, blackberry, rose petal, soft leather and mature tobacco flavors, beautifully wrapped in fine tannins. Best from 2013 through 2018
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Wine Enthusiast
Released quite young, this is a wine to decant. It's big and dark and tannic, tight as a tick, with grainy textural tannings wrapped havily around tart blue and purple berries. Though the flavors are pure Syrah, the structure and density are Cabernet like and though it's a guess, the odds are this is a wine to cellar for at least a decade.
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.”
An important winegrowing state increasingly recognized for its high-quality reds and whites, Washington ranks second in production in the U.S. after California. Washington wines continue to gain well-deserved popularity as they garner higher and higher praise from critics and consumers alike.
Washington winemakers draw inspiration mainly from Napa Valley, Bordeaux and the Rhône as well as increasingly from other regions like Spain and Italy. Most viticulture takes place on the eastern side of the state—an arid desert in the rain shadow of the Cascade mountains. Irrigation is made possible by the Columbia River. Temperatures are extreme, with hot and dry summers and cold winters, during which frost can be a risk.
Washington’s wine industry was initially built on Merlot, which remains an important variety to this day, despite having been overtaken in acreage planted by Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Bordeaux blends and Rhône blends are common as well as single varietal bottlings. Washington reds tend to express a real purity of concentrated fruit. The best examples have a bold richness, seamless texture, plush or powdery tannins and flavors such as licorice, herb, forest floor, espresso and dark chocolate.
In terms of white wine from Washington state, Riesling is the state’s major success story, producing crisp, aromatic examples with plenty of stone fruit that range from bone dry to lusciously sweet. Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc perform nicely here as well, and Viognier is beginning to pick up steam.