Winemaker Notes
With The Big Easy, Fess Parker pays homage to one of their favorite cities, a culinary mecca and great supporters of their wines - New Orleans.This well-structured blend has the same characteristics you have come to expect from The Big Easy: rich dark fruit flavors with a touch of oak, and soft tannins that lead to a long lengthy finish.
Blend: 57% Syrah, 31% Petite Sirah, 12% Grenache
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 The Big Easy checks in as a blend of 57% Syrah, 31% Petite Sirah, and 12% Grenache brought up in French and American oak (61% new). It's always an uber-ripe, pleasure-bent effort and the 2016 is no exception, although it has a beautiful weightlessness and elegance about it as well. Blackcurrants, camphor, scorched earth, licorice, and spice notes all emerge from this medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced, delicious red that packs ample fruit and texture. Don't age it, drink it.
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Wine Enthusiast
Dark and brooding aromas of peppercorn-crusted beef steak, teriyaki, blueberry and wood smoke make for a savory entry to this bottling. Intense blueberry, charred meat and cherry-wood flavors show on the palate, which is framed by firm mouthcoating tannins. It's a great barbecue wine.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Fess Parker's 2016 The Big Easy is made up of 57% Syrah, 31% Petite Sirah and 12% Grenache. Opaque ruby-purple, it has a nose of fried herbs, garrigue, beef drippings, toasted coconut and an impenetrable core of dense black and blue fruit preserves. It's a full-bodied, beefy monster in the mouth, with loads of ripe fruit and spices and firm, chewy tannins, lacking just a bit in freshness.
Established in 1989, Fess Parker Winery is a multi-generational family owned and operated winery that has a rich heritage in Santa Barbara County. Fess Parker produces premium, small-lot, vineyard designated Burgundian varietals from the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley as well as Rhône varietals from their organically farmed, SIP Certified estate vineyard.
Outstanding fruit sources, including some of the finest vineyards in the county, coupled with skilled winemaking, led by Blair Fox, form the foundation for the winery’s success. Now three generations in, the Fess Parker Family is proud to carry on Fess’s legacy of wine heritage and hospitality in Santa Barbara.
Fess Parker Winery was proud to be named a Top 100 Winery in the World by Wine & Spirits Magazine in both 2022 and 2023.
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.
Ranging from cool and foggy in the west to warm and dry in the east, the Santa Ynez Valley is a climatically diverse growing area. The most expansive AVA within the larger Santa Barbara County region, Santa Ynez is also home to a wide variety of soil types and geographical features. The appellation is further divided into four distinct sub-AVAs—Sta. Rita Hills, Ballard Canyon, Los Olivos District and Happy Canyon—each with its own defining characteristics.
A wide selection of grapes is planted here—more than sixty different varieties, and counting. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir dominate in the chilly west, while Zinfandel, Rhône blends, and Bordeaux blends rule the arid east. Syrah is successful at both ends of the valley, with a lean and peppery, Old-World sensibility closer to the coast and lush berry fruit further inland.