"Its dense purple-color and notes of blackberry, tar, licorice, pepper, and espresso roast are followed by full-bodied, rich, heady flavors with moderately high tannins."
Rated 90-92 by Robert M. Parker, Jr.,
"The Wine Advocate"
"Good deep medium ruby. Highly aromatic nose melds blackberry, violet, licorice and smoked meat. Sweet, fat, lush and deep, with distinctly savory character to the dark cherry and pepper flavors. This really spreads out to saturate the palate, finishing with broad, dusty tannins."
Rated 92-93 by Stephen Tanzer, "International Wine Cellar"
Vineyard
Lee Hudson is one of the best grape farmers in California, very dedicated to quality, and honestly evaluates his work, always fine tuning, seeking higher ground. So when Lee called me in 2005 and said he had a newer block of Syrah that he thought might produce some of his vineyards best Syrah, I had no option but to say, "sign me up for as much as you can." Sadly, this amounted to a few rows, but they were in the rockiest part of the vineyard.
Most of the rows are planted to the Syrah Noir Clone, which has proven itself in many of California's cooler vineyard sights. A few rows are planted to the "Alban" Clone - propagated by Californian John Alban from cuttings off of many of the Rhone Valley's most celebrated Syrah planting. The two clones are planted right next to each other, share similar soils and of course climate, but taste different from grape to bottle - therefore we keep them separate.
Vintage
A warm spring lead to an early bud break, followed by a cool stretch bringing the vines back to a normal time-line for harvest. Syrah set was smaller than Cabernet Sauvignon and needed little thinning. In September, a ten day warm spell accelerated sugars and flavors - followed by four more weeks of "hang time" that brought flavors and sugars into harmony.
Winemaking
Great Syrah for us is the most labor intensive wine we make, the fruit has to be hand sorted to remove dehydrated berries. Most are 100% whole clustered fermentations, this means we ferment with stems intact clusters of grapes, which requires very labor intensive small lot fermentations. Sometimes we ferment with varying percentages of stems intact, the decision based on the maturity of stems and seeds. If the seeds are sweet and the stems brown, is it always closer to whole cluster, back breaking fermentations. After fermentation, the wine is pressed direct to small French Burgundy barrels. Our Syrahs are then aged with little racking for 21 months before bottling, unfiltered and unfined.
The Wine
This is a more feminine version of the Hudson Syrah Noir, with a perfume that is haunting yet dramatic. Like its brother, the Syrah Noir bottling, it has very old world, Rhone-like aromas for me; licorice, violets, smoked meats. It is a bit silkier on the palate, still dense, and possessing great palate length of flavors. A very special wine. Only 96 magnums available.