Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2022 Syrah Sur Echalas Vineyard is particularly exotic in peppercorn and garrigue, dipping into a wild array of green olive tapenade, too. The tannins are pronounced and sturdy, not quite ready to calm down. Intensely earthy, complex, and feral, there’s a reprieve on the velvety midpalate, leading to a finishing touch of oyster shell and sea spray. This is a wild wine ready to meld a bit more in the bottle; enjoy best 2028-2038.
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Wine Spectator
A dynamic Syrah that’s loaded with personality and substance, offering lilting accents of bacon fat, black raspberry, garrigue and black olive while building richness and tension on the finish. Drink now through 2035.
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James Suckling
This is an extreme wine. It has so much green olive, bacon fat, wet earth, iron and blood on the nose, with hints of peach and blood oranges. It’s full-bodied and powerfully meaty on the palate, with very fine, tight-grained tannins. Intensely, outrageously tarry, and keeps going. From biodynamically grown grapes. Best after 2028.
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Vinous
The 2022 Syrah Sur Echalas Vineyard is intense, mixing black tea and cardamom with olives, roasted peppers, stone dust and dried citrus peels. It is soothingly round and beautifully balanced with silken textures and ripe wild berry fruits complicated by saline mineral tones. Juicy and fresh, the 2022 resonates with minty herbs and a stony resonance as sweet tannins frame a lingering note of licorice. The Sur Echalas Vineyard turns the pleasure dial to the max.
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Wine Enthusiast
The acidity involved here makes every sip of wine feel like the crackling snap of a cold piece of celery. The wine's huckleberry-pie, fennel and cinnamon aromas are no slouch, either. I could stop here and be happy. The vibrating palate shows off flavors of boysenberries, plums and black pepper, with a trace of molasses.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Syrah Sur Echalas Vineyard opens with aromas of spiced black cherry, roasted espresso beans, savory herbs, turned earth and charred herbs. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is ripe on the palate, with hints of mushroom and truffle before the fruit profile gracefully recedes. The focus then shifts to tertiary, earthy notions with soft notes of leather and baked clay. The wine concludes with a tannic grip and lingering ashy essence, showcasing a very mineral-driven and savory character. Oddly, the Grenache from the same vineyard acted similarly on the finish. Only 4,140 bottles made.
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.