Despite the “Red Wine” labeling, this is a varietal Syrah, grown in a cold and windy site in the Santa Lucia Highlands. The small, concentrated berries were fermented in open tops with one-quarter stem inclusion, and the wine was aged for fourteen months in a mix of small and large barrels.
It’s the color of red plum skin, quite opaque, and its perfume is at once stony, like wet slate, and fruity, like blackberry jam. Earthy tobacco-steeped red and black fruits on the body have an almost meatiness, while a blaze of acidity adds levity. There is a faint suggestion of brushy herbs and smoke, but the wine skews more fruit than feral, and it demands some air to let those dense-packed berries scatter open.
14% abv | $60 (sample)
