Winemaker Notes
Red Car Sonoma Coast Syrah offers notes of pepper, blackcurrant and leaf tobacco.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Syrah Sonoma Coast pours a darker purple-toned hue and is more savory with notes of pristine black olive, lavender oils, fresh plum, and toasted peppercorn. It had 30% whole clusters, with aging in 20% new 500-liter puncheons. The palate is full-bodied, refined, and very light on its feet, with a weightless feel, refined chalky tannins, and a lovely spine of fresh acidity.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is definitively softer-bodied Syrah from a cooler, more coastal climate. The nose displays violets, pepper, black tea and plum, while the palate brings an acid-driven wave of clove, black olive, blackberry and orange peel flavors.
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Wine Spectator
Handsomely structured and vibrant with acidity, this red offers lively raspberry and tart blueberry flavors laced with forest floor, savory anise and white pepper notes. Drink now through 2031. 450 cases made.
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Vinous
The 2021 Syrah (Sonoma Coast) is a powerful, burly wine. Black fruit, game, licorice, tobacco, iron, blood and black pepper emphasize the darker side of Syrah. Potent tannins add to that impression. The 2021 is a very good wine, but it is decidedly for the dinner table. This is a blend of two sites—one in Sebastopol Hills and the other in Fort Ross-Seaview.
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.