25% off all wines + free case shipping with code BERSERK
Hello! I’m Claire Hill and I’m very excited to back for my second Berserker Day.
Today I’m offering my 2021 Grist Vineyard and 2021 Casa Vineyard Syrahs to the Wine Berserker community with a 25% off discount and free shipping on cases. I’m also extending that discount to my other current releases, Del Barba Mourvèdre and Sierra Foothills Zinfandel, so you can get a mixed case shipping for free. Shipping is available to 41 states, with the full list found here.
WHY SYRAH?
Syrah has always been the variety that speaks to me most - it has a wild elegance at its most beautiful. Syrah’s tendency towards reduction and affinity for stem inclusion makes the winemaking side endlessly interesting. I moved to the Northern Rhône in 2016 just to understand this grape better and worked under Éric Texier to learn about traditional winemaking in the region. Prior to that, I lived and worked at Rhys, where I gained the conviction that a well placed Syrah vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains can rival France’s best.
In 2021, I made only 4 barrels of Grist Vineyard and 2 barrels of Casa Vineyard Syrah. While they are still in their youth and have many years of aging potential, they do drink beautifully when allowed to decant and relax a bit. At present, they begin to strut their stuff 3 days after opening. I highly recommend tucking these away for a while before enjoying them. Your patience will be rewarded!
GRIST VINEYARD SYRAH, DRY CREEK, SONOMA 2021
$42 → $32
High above the Dry Creek Valley atop Bradford Mountain (1,000 feet elevation), this old vine Syrah is only 15 miles from the ocean as the crow flies. Perched up above the fogline, Grist Vineyard fruit has a fantastic natural acidity that brings freshness and verve alongside ageability.
This organically farmed Syrah block was planted in 1983, making it unusually old for California Syrah. It’s rare to find very old Syrah plantings in California not interplanted with Petite Sirah. A true mark of a California heritage vineyard, Ehren Jordan first started working with the vineyard when he was at Turley, and continues to make Zinfandel from the site for his own label.
Soils here are Boomer loam, a red volcanic rock that gives low yields and concentrated fruit. The vines are trained in double cordon and deficit irrigated to prevent the vines completely shutting down in heat waves. The grapes are fermented with partial whole cluster and co-fermented with about 2% Viognier to bring out the lifted, pretty aromatics of Syrah. Aged for 11 months in 7th use French oak barrels and held back another 5 months in bottle before release.
CASA VINEYARD, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS 2021
$48 → $36
Planted in 2001, this dry-farmed Syrah vineyard is situated on a steep slope at 2,100 feet elevation. The vineyard’s terraces wrap around the face of the slope giving it expositions from the south to the east. Situated above the fog line, the eastern side of the vineyard gets some of the morning sun that lower elevations don’t see until later in the morning once the fog has burned off for the day. True to its native Rhône, there is a pétanque court and olive trees between the terraces of Syrah.
This Syrah has the signature Santa Cruz Mountains cocoa nib smell layered over the variety’s classic bacon fat and olive structure. I make this wine in much the same way I made Syrah at Rhys and with Éric Texier, but pulled back on the whole cluster to half to capture more of the delicate high-toned aromatics. The whole clusters go on top of the destemmed grapes and are then spritzed with grape spirit (“gnolle” in France) to prevent kloeckera growth (and volatile acidity) in the lead up to fermentation. The other half of the fruit is destemmed and goes below the whole clusters to have more thermal insulation as it kicks off fermentation. After 2 weeks of maceration, the dry wine is sent to used French oak barrel where it rests on fine lees for 11 months before bottling
This wine was bottled in August 2022 but will benefit from several more years of aging or a healthy decanting before serving. It has the acid and tannin structure one would expect of a wine from the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the ageability that comes with it.
Farming is organic, though uncertified given the site’s small size. With the high disease pressure of the Santa Cruz Mountains, farming clean fruit organically is a constant battle. This vineyard is sprayed with stylet oil (a highly purified form of mineral oil) and a kitchen sink’s worth of beneficial bacteria to biologically control mildew. Those include Regalia, Triathlon BA, Actinovate, Sonata and Serenade.
This vineyard was the passion project of a Frenchman named Gilles. He sadly passed away in February of 2021, and so this is the last vintage of this wine.
LABEL ARTWORK
I paint all of my labels to spotlight the other plants that grow around the vineyards I work with. Casa’s label shows redwood sorrel, a common sight in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Grist’s pomegranate references not just the trees that grow there, but also the tannic juiciness found in the wine itself.
Many of the pigments I use are naturally sourced from rocks and soils: the leaves on the pomegranate are done in a green paint derived from French green clay called Montmorillonite, named for the town of Montmorillon in Vienne where it was first mined for pigment. Some stems include various gradations of umber, named for the brown soils of Umbria where the pigment was first mined. The umbers I use are generally sourced from the Harz Mountains in Cyprus.
there’s no issue with pickup