Winemaker Notes
Ramey's Syrahs are grown in the cool climate of the Sonoma Coast which offers a style reminiscent of the Northern Rhone regions of Hermitage and Cornas: aromas and flavors of smoked meat, white pepper, green olive and grapefruit, coupled with a silky texture and savory flavor.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a well-made wine from several sites, including Cole Creek, Rodgers Creek and Alegria, all vineyard-designates of their own. Together, they sizzle in floral lavender, smoke and gamy meat. The Syrah is cofermented with 6% Viognier. The body is concentrated in ripeness and grip; let it mellow in the cellar and enjoy best 2025–2030. Cellar Selection
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Syrah Sonoma Coast is a Côte Rôtie-lookalike and offers plenty of bacon fat and floral notes intermixed with pretty blackberry and raspberry fruit. Cofermented with 4% Viognier, it’s medium-bodied, seamless, and elegant, with terrific complexity. Drink it over the coming decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Syrah Sonoma Coast is medium garnet-purple in color and scented of black cherries, mulberries and warm black plums with notions of peppercorns, violets and garrigue plus a touch of black olives. Medium to full-bodied, concentrated and with a firm frame of ripe, rounded tannins, it has a lively peppery lift on the finish.
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 vast appellation covering Sonoma County’s Pacific coastline, the Sonoma Coast AVA runs all the way from the Mendocino County border, south to the San Pablo Bay. The region can actually be divided into two sections—the actual coastal vineyards, marked by marine soils, cool temperatures and saline ocean breezes—and the warmer, drier vineyards further inland, which are still heavily influenced by the Pacific but not quite with same intensity.
Contained within the appellation are the much smaller Fort Ross-Seaview and Petaluma Gap AVAs.
The Sonoma Coast is highly regarded for elegant Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and, increasingly, cool-climate Syrah. The wines have high acidity, moderate alcohol, firm tannin, and balanced ripeness.