- 1997 Edmunds St. John Syrah Higher Ground - USA, California, Sierra Foothills, El Dorado County (1/11/2025)
Another bottle from the cellar of the late Thor Iverson, this is both ready (yay!) and delicious. At first blush I would call high quality Crozes Hermitage, perhaps like Graillot. It has the freshness/brightness of a top Crozes, as well as the prominent savory notes like olive and smoked meat. The fruit is still holding on, blackberry/black cherry that comes across like an aroma from a pie that is sitting on a windowsill as you walk past the house. It’s faint but clear.
I’ve had a few bottles of this wine over the last several years, and this is the best, as it has better balance, and more depth to its flavors than prior bottles. Feels like a drink now and catch it at its best situation.
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Never heard of Higher Ground vineyard. Did Steve make more than one vintage from there?
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It’s not the “Higher Ground” vineyard, it’s that the vineyard he used (this one time) was at high elevation.
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Cheers to memories of Thor! 
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Sorry to hear about Thor. He was always one of the best writers on the wineweb.
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Nice couple of ESJs recently! I’ve never had this bottling, but I am alway excited about aged Wylie-Fenaughty, and as long as the bottle is sound, the wine has always lived up to that excitement.
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From a post Steve did elsewhere:
“Higher Ground was a project begun in 1989, in which 3 parties (including ESJ) invested, to develop a vineyard at 3400’ in the south part of El Dorado County, above Fairplay. Very steep terrain, volcanic soil. I hired a vineyard manager who, unfortunately, didn’t really have the know-how to deal with the inherent difficulties of the project, but acted like he did. The person who succeeded him came highly recommended, but also, really, was in over her head.
The '97 vintage was the only bottling we ever got that saw any commercial release (all 27 or so cases of it). It was such a pain in the butt, though what might have been seemed so promising. Glad to at least have made something from the ground up, before the whole thing caved in.”
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I think I walked that vineyard with Steve back around 2000. If was difficult to farm and wasn’t really prepped real well prior to planting so the space in between rows was a a mess too. I was looking at land to plant a vineyard back then and Steve showed it to me. I passed on the parcel but found a hunk of land a bit further South that we love. We’re not planting any grapes tho.
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He also said that he thought the property had been sold, but that he hadn’t kept up with it since he stopped getting fruit.