Winemaker Notes
Blend: 90% Syrah, 10% Petite Sirah
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
This Syrah (with 10% Petite Sirah blended in) possesses the plushest array of dark fruit, violets, and chocolate cream with persistent aromas of plum and leather. The presence of graphite and smoked meat doesn’t hamper the wine’s luscious texture and flavors.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The saturated purple-colored 2015 Relentless is a Syrah-dominated blend that includes 10% Petite Sirah. This cuvée was first made in 1999 and the Syrah comes from a site in the hills above Oakville Knoll. Boasting terrific, full-throttle notes of black fruits, violets, and tapenade, it shows surprising elegance and purity on the palate, has fine, silky tannins, and superb balance. It’s a brilliant wine that has both power and elegance. Drink it over the coming decade.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Blended of 90% Syrah and 10% Petite Sirah, the deep purple-black colored 2015 Relentless has a total rock-star nose of flamboyant blackberry pie, plum preserves, mulberries and licorice scents with hints of Sichuan pepper, hoisin, Indian spices and smoked meats plus a waft of raspberry leaves. Very big, rich, full and decadently fruited in the mouth, the palate packs in black fruits and exotic spices layers with a firm, rounded tannin frame and just enough freshness to carry off the long, opulent finish.
Rating: 95+ -
Wine Enthusiast
This blend of 90% Syrah and 10% Petite Sirah is a forceful, powerful knockout, delivering tones of turned earth, wild game and nutmeg. Full bodied and robust, it layers velvety smoothness around a mouthfilling, grippy core of bright black fruit that’s rich and highly rewarding.
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Wine Spectator
Rich and deeply structured, with powerfully built blackberry, river stone and smoky pepper beef flavors that take on potency toward refined tannins. Syrah and Petite Sirah. Drink now through 2024.
Undoubtedly proving its merit over and over, Napa Valley is a now a leading force in the world of prestigious red wine regions. Though Cabernet Sauvignon dominates Napa Valley, other red varieties certainly thrive here. Important but often overlooked include Merlot and other Bordeaux varieties well-regarded on their own as well as for their blending capacities. Very old vine Zinfandel represents an important historical stronghold for the region and Pinot noir is produced in the cooler southern parts, close to the San Pablo Bay.
Perfectly situated running north to south, the valley acts as a corridor, pulling cool, moist air up from the San Pablo Bay in the evenings during the hot days of the growing season, which leads to even and slow grape ripening. Furthermore the valley claims over 100 soil variations including layers of volcanic, gravel, sand and silt—a combination excellent for world-class red wine production.