Winemaker Notes
Ephemeral, smooth yet lively, the 2016 Veracity offers flavors of red raspberries, honeydew melon, rhubarb, grilled herbs, lavender, fennel, navel orange and forest dew. The wine’s texture, minerality and acid are beautifully in balance, creating a remarkable weight and energy on the palate.
Blend: 51% Mourvèdre, 36% Grenache, 13% Syrah
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The Mourvèdre-dominated 2016 Veracity (51% Mourvèdre, 36% Grenache, and 13% Syrah) reveals a darker ruby color as well as a sensational bouquet of blackcurrants, smoked meats, ground herbs, chocolate, and earth. With full-bodied richness, no hard edges, wonderful purity of fruit, and a great finish, it's a heavenly expression of Mourvèdre to drink over the coming decade or more.
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Wine Enthusiast
Intensely focused fruit aromas of crushed and candied blackberry are woven into waves of spice cake, gingerbread and more exotic spices on the nose of this blend of 51% Mourvèdre, 36% Grenache and 13% Syrah. Perfectly polished tannins retain enough tension to stand up to the ripe blackberry, cola-nut and gingersnap flavors.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Veracity is a blend of 51% Mourvèdre, 36% Grenache and 13% Syrah. It was made with 31% whole cluster and aged 17 months in 32% new French oak barrels and puncheons. It has a medium to deep ruby-purple color and gives up scents of olives, cured meats, underbrush and potpourri with a core of warm blackberries, red cherries, raspberries, powdered sugar and forest floor. Medium to full-bodied, it features well-tempered ripe fruits with a firm frame and great freshness, finishing long and perfumed.
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Wine Spectator
Bold aromas of dried cherry, cured meat and licorice open to dense and deep flavors that build tension and drama toward firm tannins. Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah.
With bold fruit flavors and accents of sweet spice, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre form the base of the classic Rhône Red Blend, while Carignan, Cinsault and Counoise often come in to play. Though they originated from France’s southern Rhône Valley, with some creative interpretation, Rhône blends have also become popular in other countries. Somm Secret—Putting their own local spin on the Rhône Red Blend, those from Priorat often include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. In California, it is not uncommon to see Petite Sirah make an appearance.
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.