Winemaker Notes
This single vineyard Syrah is from the oldest Syrah vineyard in the Sierra Nevada (est. 1982) and one of the most famous Syrah sites in California. Each year it provides us with intense luscious fruit. Te vineyard is at 1,650 feet on a South facing slope in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, next to their winery. The parcel is planted all on its own roots. Te vines originate from the Chapoutier Hermitage property (UCD Clone 1).
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Superb polish and almost surreal fruit concentration mark this extraordinary wine as a great one. It is drenched in blackberry, blueberry and dark-chocolate flavors, wrapped in velvety tannins and so deep and layered that the flavors linger for minutes on the finish. Best from 2026–2036.
Cellar Selection -
James Suckling
Dark chocolate, black pepper and toasted oak aromas, then a rich, complex palate of baked blackberries, graphite, charred beef, cloves and cinnamon. Just starting to mellow with age.
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Wine & Spirits
This grows at a south-facing parcel, planted on its own roots in the early 1980s, using plant material that originated in Hermitage. A big, tough syrah, this has a bright pink-grapefruit acidity to pierce the heavy weight of its resinous black fruit. Tart, tannic and warm, it’s a wine for braised duck.
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.”
