Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Deep color and intense, deep fruit flavors along with a good tannic structure mark this full-bodied wine as one to appreciate and age. The texture is fine grained, dry and layered, with concentrated black cherry, smoke, clove and cedar flavors that unfold slowly on the palate and finish. While tempting now, this will be best after 2022. Cellar Selection
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Gibson Block is the heart of the McDowell Valley AVA and is planted with some of the oldest Syrah in California. Deep garnet-purple colored, it has intense blackberry and plum preserves notes on the nose with hints of bacon, black pepper and peach blossoms. The powerful, full-bodied palate delivers generous black fruit coulis flavors with plenty of spice layers and a firm, chewy backbone, finishing long with a refreshing lift.
Starting with only a handful of purchased grapes in 1978, Marietta Cellars has been a standout winery in Sonoma and Mendocino since the very beginning. Founded by Chris Bilbro, a Sonoma County native with winemaking roots dating back three generations, Marietta rose to prominence with its revolutionary Old Vine Red, a California red blend that essentially created the category. The winery has slowly expanded its estate holdings over the past thirty years, evolving into a beacon for high quality, balanced Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, and Rhône variety blends. Now fully estate-based and organically farmed, Marietta has vineyards spanning 310 acres in the Alexander Valley, McDowell Valley, and Yorkville Highlands. Notable among their heritage plantings are California’s oldest Syrah blocks, planted in the late 1800s.
Scot Bilbro, Chris’s son, has brought Marietta into its next, incredibly exciting phase. After graduating from UC Davis with a degree in Viticulture and Enology in 2007, Scot joined the winery full-time, assuming the role of winemaker in 2012. Steeped in the history of the California wine country and the traditions established by his father, Scot combines his creativity and technical background in guiding the winery’s vision of viticulture and winemaking. Today, the fusion of traditional values and style with modern precision have culminated in the most highly regarded wines of Marietta’s four decade history.
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 continuous sloping bench land overlooking the Russian River, McDowell Valley reaches about 1,000 feet at its highest elevation. It is cooler than the surrounding, more northwestern areas of Mendocino County.