The Perfect Storm
Not all vintages are created equal. Weather patterns can affect crop, grape morphology, timing, and size. Beyond crop, the canopy of leaves can freeze, crisp in the heat, struggle with too little sun and just as badly with too much. Factors like drought, wildfires and recessions also have direct effects on timing and opportunity to succeed. The number of things that need to go right in any given vintage are infinite.
The 2023 vintage was the best example of a perfect storm, a convergence of rare circumstances aligning to create a highly productive season and great qualitative success. Our Syrah vineyards developed slowly and evenly, allowing for what we call a “long hang time.” Extended time on the vine means that the fruit generates complex phenolic compounds without sacrificing acidity or developing excessive sugar (brix). This in turn means that we are able to naturally preserve freshness and low alcohol while the resulting wine is especially concentrated, rich, and bursting with a spectrum of secondary and tertiary flavors.
Allowing a wine to represent a true sense of time and place requires adaptation and flexibility. Working towards a single idea of how a wine “should” taste as a rule ignores both season and site. The new Mountain Tops Syrah exists because we opt to let our wines speak for themselves.
Inspired by Place
Primary flavors are the fruit you taste and smell in a wine. A white wine may have primary aromas of citrus, orchard fruit, or tropical fruits, whereas Syrah tends to feature dark fruits - blackberries, cassis, and plum. One of the many things we love about this variety are the savory secondary flavors, nearly as pronounced as the primary, which can include bacon, black pepper, and brined olives. Tertiary notes are a little deeper, you may only begin to notice them with time as you sort through the louder notes, and may be influenced by site. The iron rich soils of Armagh come through with a sanguine, gamey quality. The wild, wind-swept Griffin’s Lair has hints of tar and iodine. High elevation Alder Springs trends towards more delicate, subtle notes of violets and sweet mint.
The idea behind blending the very best Syrah vineyards instead of bottling exclusively vineyard designates is that we can produce a more complete picture of this variety across a region. Sonoma Hillsides is a snapshot of Sonoma County - the distinctive notes of each site melded seamlessly into one through early blending into large concrete tanks. Our highest elevation sites developed richness and bold tannins in the cool 2023 vintage, qualities well suited to an extended elevage in neutral oak puncheons to smooth out those edges and bring out the best in these selections.
Oak vs. Concrete
Oak aging wines over the following vintage is a common practice for wines that are picked with big tannins and are being made for long term cellaring. This resting or raising of the wine between fermentation and bottling is called élevage. Oak aging wines is very common for high-end wine production, practically every wine we make has at least some part of it spend time in wood barrels. Our Sonoma Hillsides famously spends a large part of its élevage in Concrete tanks. We believe this is one of the decisions that separates the Hillsides from your standard California Syrah. Our decision to take the more tannic components from the Sonoma Hillsides blend and age them for an additional 9-10 months in 500L French Oak Puncheons was an opportunity to create another distinct Syrah. The harmony of a blend, the very best parts and parcels of our best sites, elevated and meticulous winemaking practices and the long slow process of aging these components in Neutral Large format Oak Barrels to show the opposite side of the Sonoma Hillsides coin.
Elevation
This wine was blended and created long before we had a name or concept. It was after the wine was created that we realized that all of the components chosen were all of our highest elevation mountain sites. These sites are among the lowest yielding, and can rush to ripeness in a typical season. The small yield and tiny berries from the depleted soils ripen faster as there is less of it. In 2023, these parcels were harvested late into October and into mid November. This extended hang time created a fabulously textured and decadent bottle of Syrah. Thus a new label was conceived to reflect a wine not defined so much by AVA or geographic region - but by elevation.
