Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Offering gorgeous ripe cherries, blueberries, black peppercorns, and sappy flowers, as well as just touch of gamey, bacon-like nuances, the 2021 Syrah Cinematique Larner Vineyard hits the palate with medium to full body, a soft, seamless texture, and ultra-fine tannins. As usual, it's a more approachable, polished Syrah compared to the Bien Nacido release. Drink bottles any time over the coming decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Syrah Cinématique Larner Vineyard comes from 23-year-old vines, and the wine was matured in 40% new French oak for 19 months. It has dark, flashy aromas of blackcurrant candy, powdered sugar and wafts of blueberries, plus nuances of sage leaves, coffee beans and lavender. The full-bodied palate has an elegant frame of pixelated tannins to support its concentrated fruit, sparks of fresh acidity that call you back to the glass and a long, flavorful finish. 125 cases were made.
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Wine Enthusiast
Intense aromas of boysenberry and violet are quite elegant on the nose of this bottling. The palate offers a complex mix of dark berry, herby chaparral and cherry, with light wood spice on the finish.
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Vinous
The 2021 Syrah Larner Vineyard Cinematique is a powerful, dense wine. Black cherry, plum, graphite, lavender, leather, licorice and incense infuse the 2021 with notable complexity. I would give the 2021 a few years to settle down, as it is quite imposing today.
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.”
Accounting for only ten percent of the greater Santa Ynez AVA, Ballard Canyon’s north-south orientation provides an ideal pattern of sunshine and martime fog for producing excellent Syrah. While Syrah is planted to half of the total AVA acreage, an additional third is dedicated to other Rhône varieties, red and white.