Been a long time since I drank any Piedrasassi but on our recent golf/wine trip, we hit Piedrasassi last, at the end of a wine-only day while in the Lompoc Ghetto. This was the last wine I tasted that day, and it’s really delicious now, being able to spend some time with a new bottle having returned home. I plan to finish the final 1/3rd tomorrow night, as with the acidity here and depth of fruit (red and black#, this seems to be the kind of winemaking that could go a week on the counter and still be fresh, enjoyable. Nice to be drinking Sashi’s wines, again.
2010 Piedrasassi Syrah- USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Ynez Valley #8/16/2013)
I tasted this wine last week, was the last selection at the last stop, from a 4 hour day of tasting and we were the last group into Piedrasassi and so we moved through the wines quickly. It’s been a few years since I tasted anything from the winery, so I was interested to see where Sashi was taking the wines. I brought a couple of these 2010s back, the note here started with the wine seeing about 30 mins of air so far. This is well made, showing a # of nice syrah markers. Olive, smoke, dried flower, all notes I like in my syrahs. The palate is medium weighted, with some drying tannin, with dark raspberry and blackberry fruit and a good swath of lavender, which then finishes with a tart note in the core, along with cured meat and saline flavors. I suspect air will evolve this wine, as it’s changing but I offer these opening comments for those who may drink on opening…been open a full 2 days now. The additional aeration makes the wine a little more darker fruited, yet all that good whole cluster aspects hang around, as well as the acid, so what I find today is a wine with lots of character, fruit, vitality. Polished? Not a lot of polish but this is a wine I would like to have 2-3 more bottles of, to track over time to see how the acidity and stem content really fills in. I like this now, will drink my other one in 2015.
Good grief, Frank…you visit Sashi’s tasting room, go ape $hit over his Syrah…yet not one mention of the highlight of a visit there…the bread???
Where are your sense of priorities???
The stuff is as good as any I’ve found in Calif. I bought a loaf of it and kept reaching into the bag & ripping off a chunk
to snack on on my flight back from Burbank the next day. Jeez…what I wouldn’t have given for a small btl of (good) olive oil.
But you’re right…that Syrah is awfully good.
Tom
Tom, when we were there, the bread was coming out of the oven and we bought a loaf of each. I actually preferred that seeded wheat loaf over the sourdough, as the latter (at least the one I got) seemed to not be totally cooked through. The wheat was excellent. Seems that bread is popular as a # of people came in to the front of the small tasting room while we were there and bought a loaf.
FWIW, I am done with the work day and so finishing the last 3-4 ozs of this bottle. Open 3 + days and doing well, although it has very much fleshed out. Still dark, juicy with terrific acidity and fleshy. Glad to have one left.
How are the oak levels? I haven’t tasted one of their syrahs in several years (I see it was the 2003 vintage), but back then it was overwhelmed by oak.
Not now, Alan. Not this bottle. Whether Sashi has evolved the same route as Pax and Wells, not sure, as the website doesn’t seem to reflect the tech details on this 2010 but I didn’t get any oak influence that was overt or noticed.
