My first Rhys Syrah, and it is a beauty. Too young, but I have another one for later on. Silky-smooth with a red-fruit profile, some wild flower and a bit of pepper. This was great with some grilled lamb. A terrific Syrah, it made me think of some Paul Lato Syrah I have had in the past. A compliment, to be sure.
I know this note is short on analysis, but the wine really is impressive.
Brad,
I’ve been limiting most of my Syrah purchases to Northern Rhone, but do have a couple of '09 Skyline & Horseshoe. I should really try one before the next vintage is released and decide if they’re for me. Have you tried the '09’s?
Same camp here. All of my Rhys syrah has been tried at the winery. I appreciate the good volume of CT notes that are in the community now regarding the Rhys syrah so I have elected to wait on opening mine at home. I did open one about six months ago and the damn thing was TCA’d all to hell.
Brad, thanks for the note.
I would tell you guys one thing…look out for the release of the Alder Springs syrah from Kevin. When I was there earlier this year, we tried it and for kicks, here is my note:
2011 Rhys Alesia Syrah Alder Springs- USA, California, North Coast, Mendocino County (4/10/2013)
40% whole cluster. Man, I dug this wine. It just seemed to hit me right. Bacon fat, purple flower aromatics, just full of fragrance. Depth of flavor, too. Then, with air, I got iron and pepper in the nose, with tannin and rocks in the finish. This is very similar to Copain Brosseau syrah, very close. I starred this wine in my notes. Putting aside any bias about this being non-estate fruit and CA syrah…if you like Copain Brosseau, meaning blue fruits and minerality in your CA syrah, buy it. I surely will.
It seems like some or all of the Rhys 2011’s are showing more minerality, which to me is a good thing. The one glass of 2011 Bearwallow I’ve had, I REALLY liked partly for this reason, while previous vintages, while tasty and very well made and rich, did not seem to have anything unique about them. All of their other wines have a uniqueness about them (except for early Family Farms, not my style) and now Bearwallow joins that crowd.
California syrah to me is sketchy because there are so many very well made ones that, again, are not distinct from other very well made ones, so Rhys is now my only source for Calif syrah, and very few of those. Part of the reason for that is it’s harder to match with food than pinot noir, and part of the reason is, for some reason I still really really like a well-balanced Shiraz (not always an oxymoron). I have a couple of Northern Rhones but trying them out has the opposite problem, they are almost too distinct from each other so that it’s hard to tell ahead of time which ones I might like (someone else poured my first Jamet for example, ditto Chave), especially at the price, and my favorite (ten-plus-years-old Chave) I can no longer afford.
Considering the altitude, soil depth, local and vistas Skyline is one of the most dramatic vineyards I’ve seen. A vineyard that just drips potential greatness.
I’ve yet to drink any of my Skylines and am really reluctant to tap the Syrahs - my understanding is the Skyline Syrah will soon be a thing of the past.
Skyline vineyard blew my mind. I think we were on the same tour several years back. WTF do you mean thing of the past? Kevin?
I haven’t tapped into any of mine either, and I generally only buy 2 or at most 4 of any syrah. That may end up being a mistake. I don’t drink much syrah and I figured Verset, Texier, and Allemand had me covered for my needs, but with recent price escalations of Verset and Allemand, I may be a sellar and will need more syrah. These may be it.
Haven’t opened any of mine either. May have to change that this fall. Rhys, Edmunds St. John, Arnot-Roberts, Wind Gap, Lagier-Meredith (need more of these) and Anthill Farms have been covering me for Syrah beyond the expected N. Rhone sources for a while. I’m going to try a few more producers to see what’s out there.
Sorry Nathan, we are pulling up the Syrah after this harvest. We love it, but we love the Pinot that much more. Considering it will increase our Skyline Pinot production by 50% makes the decision easier to swallow. We’ve debated it for years, but finally committed to it this year. Knowing how these things usually work, the 2013 Skyline Syrah will be the best syrah we will have made or ever will make.
That’s an easy call for my palate. It means 50% more of my favorite new world pinot. Though based on the last allocation, that could mean a bottle and a half.
As much as I love Syrah, I view this as a positive because now I have some hope that I will eventually see some Skyline Pinot as part of my allocation.
Well, there is a cost benefit to everything and Horseshoe is certainly provided high quality syrah. The Skyline pinot is my favorite as well, so this is great news, so long as you just give bigger allocations instead of new ones…
Not Skyline, but '07 Horseshoe from a year ago which is just fantastic.
2007 Rhys Syrah Horseshoe Vineyard- USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains (7/1/2012)
Decanted 90 min. In all honesty I was expecting a leaner mineral driven wine, but that’s not what you have here. The fruit is center stage, blackberries, raspberry, a touch of smoke, all in a nice medium weight rustic package. I notice others have noted some fine tannins, but for me these are fully resolved and drinks exceptionally well. Not a big fruit forward wine, but one that does focus more on fruit than structure. There’s an underlying tartness that really shines here.
From what I could see during my visit earlier this month, it appeared to me that the Syrah block(s) at Skyline had a much different “aspect” (not sure if that’s the correct viticultural term…) than the other portions of the vineyard. By “aspect” I mean characteristics such as compass orientation, slope, etc. – things that would impact sun exposure, wind exposure, water retention, etc. Was my perception accurate? What about the differences in soils for those blocks vs. other blocks?
When that all adds up, would that drive you to do anything different in terms of the Pinot plantings in those blocks (root stock, clones, spacing, trellising, etc)? Would you expect to get different characteristics for the juice from these blocks?
Sorry for the “wine nerd” questions about this. It’s just that I found this to be a really interesting vineyard to see in person, which makes me curious to learn more.
Michael, one of the interesting (and sometimes maddening) things about Skyline is that it encompasses many different aspects across an extremely complex geology. Because it’s so close to the fault the oldest portions of the Pacific plate are exposed, which means that over a few feet you can find Sandstone, Shales, Mudstone, Limestone, etc. So the Syrah is slightly different because of its location, but we know there’s a band of shale that runs through that section which can be found in other parts of the vineyard and the exposure is variable like the Pinot blocks. We feel that the current dense spacing (3’ x 2’) and trellising on the Pinot blocks is the correct choice, so we’ll be doing the same on the new section. At the end of the day though, the character of the Skyline vineyard is very strong, and we think that the differences of the new block will be far outweighed by the vineyard signature. Attached is an image that shows the rolling nature of the vineyard and gives an idea of the varying exposures. We’re doing similar “Anatomy of…” images for all of our estate vineyards for our website redesign, which should be completed very soon.
[resizeableimage=1024,800]http://i.imgur.com/iZ7JBNL.jpg[/resizeableimage]
Interesting analysis – thanks for sharing. If I understand your assessment correctly, the big-picture takeaway that is implied is that “soils trump micro-climate” (at least in this case)?
Really enjoyed your “Anatomy of…” images. Eric was kind enough to preview the draft versions with us during our visit.
By the way, in the Anatomy of Skyline image, is that the “Ridge” ridge in the background on the other side of the fault?
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