Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
Another tour de force, the 2015 Syrah John Lewis offers more lavender, violets, and minerality, as well as incredible black and blue fruits. This peppery, meaty, rich, full-bodied effort has building tannin, awesome purity, and integrated acidity, and it's certainly one of the finest Syrahs in the vintage. It's more tannic than the Lagniappe Cuvée and is going to benefit from short-term cellaring, with two decades of overall longevity. Bravo! This vintage comes from a single block in the Les Collines Vineyard, in Walla Walla, isn’t destemmed, and spends 19 months in 7% new French oak puncheons.
Rating: 98+ -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Syrah John Lewis is the most youthfully reserved but also the most incipiently complex of these offerings from Gramercy Cellars, unfurling in the glass with notes of violets, potpourri, sweet black fruits, tapenade and Egyptian musk. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, multidimensional and complete, with excellent concentration, bright balancing acids and fine-grained but youthfully chewy tannins. This will need 5 or 6 years in the cellar and continue to develop for 15 years thereafter.
-
James Suckling
This has impressive complexity and delivers a soulful interpretation of syrah, offering hard brown spices, peppery notes, red and black fruits and a whole world of aromatic interest. The palate has slippery, sexy tannins in velvety mode carrying graphite and cherry-stone flavors in a seductively layered mode. Drink or hold.
-
Wine Enthusiast
All Les Collines Vineyard from blocks 36 and 46 with 100% whole cluster, the aromas stop you in your tracks, with notes of freshly chopped parsley, cured meat, potpourri, olive, violet and crushed rock. The palate is full of light tart herb and smoked-meat flavors backed by hefty tannins that need a good bit of time to resolve. It brings a sense of freshness and vibrancy, needing significant time in the cellar to be fully appreciated. Best from 2026–2031.
Cellar Selection. -
Wine & Spirits
As in years past, John Lewis comes almost exclusively from Les Collines Vineyard, block 46, but, like Forgotten Hills above, this year’s bottling is burled up and packed in on itself, full of dark secrets and a long way from peak expression. The wine leads with an earthy forest-floor scent, wafts of cured meat and dark, fig-like fruit, with a structure and tannins that need taming. Cellar.
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.”
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.