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Wine Details
Price:
$25.00 per bottle
Description:
We make three separate bottlings of Syrah at Neyers. One of them – our Cuvée d’Honneur – is a reflection of different winemaking steps, while the other two, which are made identically, reflect variations in growing conditions. Grapes for the ‘Napa Valley’ bottling come from a gently sloping parcel at the northern limit of the Hudson Vineyard in Carneros, where the soil is gravelly rather than clay-loam, and direct exposure to San Francisco Bay results in milder temperatures. Our winemaker, Ehren Jordan, spent the 1992 and 1993 harvests in Cornas, in the heart of France’s Syrah country, and brought back with him an understanding of the traditional winemaking practices that have been part of that area for a century or more. We designed our winery from the ground up with these requirements in mind. We laboriously hand-sort the grapes, use a substantial percentage of whole-cluster fruit, ferment in open-top tanks so we can manually punch down the cap, and, after a year of aging in 60-gallon French oak barrels, bottle the wine without fining or filtration. In a way, we’ve gone back in time to capture the maximum flavor and complexity of this variety.
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Varietal Definition
Syrah:
Syrah is the eight hundred pound gorilla of Rhone grapes! In the vineyard and the winery, Syrah is typically an easy grape to work with - healthy, early ripening, resistant to mildew and rot; suitable for winemaking in a variety of styles. The wines from Syrah are tannic without being harsh. The wines will have a taste and smell of dark blue fruit like blackberries and blackcurrant, with a strong spicy side where one can find freshly ground pepper and other spices. Syrah is famous for its part in the French blends, such as Côtes du Rhone and Châteauneuf du Pape.
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