Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Readers looking for a killer Syrah to purchase to see what Washington is all about couldn't do any better than a bottle of the 2013 Columbia Valley Syrah from Gramercy. Possessing lots of gamy, olive, peppery, lavender and salted meats, with a core of ripe plum and darker fruits, this beauty is full-bodied, supple, polished and utterly seamless, with no hard edges and a clean, focused finish that keeps you coming back to the glass. Buy this beauty by the case and drink it over the coming decade.
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Wine Enthusiast
Les Collines, Minick, Old Stones, SJR, Oldfield and Olsen provide the fruit for this wine. It's perfumed and leads with aromas of violets, dried herbs, olive and earth, with raspberry notes emerging over time. The palate is all about texture and elegance, while lingering on the finish.
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Wine & Spirits
This appellation blend draws from valley-wide sources, including Minnick in the Yakima Valley, Les Collines in Walla Walla’s highlands and SJR in The Rocks District. It’s all spice at the outset, with scents of olive and mace, smoke and carob. It’s surprisingly lively in flavor, leavened by a pulsating acidity that brightens the corners of an otherwise dark and intense wine, the tannins as dark as charcoal. (1,573 cases)
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.”
A large and geographically diverse AVA capable of producing a wide variety of wine styles, the Columbia Valley AVA is home to 99% of Washington state’s total vineyard area. A small section of the AVA even extends into northern Oregon!
Because of its size, it is necessarily divided into several distinctive sub-AVAs, including Walla Walla Valley and Yakima Valley—which are both further split into smaller, noteworthy appellations. A region this size will of course have varied microclimates, but on the whole it experiences extreme winters and long, hot, dry summers. Frost is a common risk during winter and spring. The towering Cascade mountain range creates a rain shadow, keeping the valley relatively rain-free throughout the entire year, necessitating irrigation from the Columbia River. The lack of humidity combined with sandy soils allows for vines to be grown on their own rootstock, as phylloxera is not a serious concern.
Red wines make up the majority of production in the Columbia Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant variety here, where it produces wines with a pleasant balance of dark fruit and herbs. Wines made from Merlot are typically supple, with sweet red fruit and sometimes a hint of chocolate or mint. Syrah tends to be savory and Old-World-leaning, with a wide range of possible fruit flavors and plenty of spice. The most planted white varieties are Chardonnay and Riesling. These range in style from citrus and green apple dominant in cooler sites, to riper, fleshier wines with stone fruit flavors coming from the warmer vineyards.