Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Jaffurs also makes a Syrah from Santa Maria’s most famous vineyard, Bien Nacido. The 2008 Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard is black/purple, with an extraordinary nose of asphalt, graphite, blueberry and blackberry liqueur intermixed with some earth and spice. Off-the-charts richness, intensity, and potential for future evolution make this an absolutely prodigious tour de force in Syrah. This is a sensational wine to drink over the next 10-15+ years. The wine’s finish has literally no hard edges but just goes on and on for a good 45+ seconds. This is just fabulous wine.
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Wine Spectator
Beautifully crafted, tight and well-structured, brimming with ripe, juicy, vibrant blackberry and wild berry fruit that’s intense, fullbodied, deep and concentrated, with a long, lingering finish that ends with spicy, loamy earth and cedary notes that are broad and profound. Drink now through 2020.
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.”
The largest and perhaps most varied of California’s wine-growing regions, the Central Coast produces a good majority of the state's wine. This vast California wine district stretches from San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara along the coast, and reaches inland nearly all the way to the Central Valley.
Encompassing an extremely diverse array of climates, soil types and wine styles, it contains many smaller sub-AVAs, including San Francisco Bay, Monterey, the Santa Cruz Mountains, Paso Robles, Edna Valley, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley.
While the Central Coast California wine region could probably support almost any major grape varietiy, it is famous for a few Central Coast reds and whites. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel are among the major ones. The Central Coast is home to many of the state's small, artisanal wineries crafting unique, high-quality wines, as well as larger producers also making exceptional wines.