Syrah 2006 Retail Price: $26
Blend: 90% Syrah, 10% Pinot Noir
Production: 575 cases
Description: The dark ruby colored 2006 Syrah has aromas of white pepper, cinnamon, and tapenade, with notes of vanilla. The smooth, sweet, silky tannins frame the abundant red fruits and give way to a long, spicy finish.
Vintage: 2006 was a season of ups and downs in terms of weather. A warm and dry April preceded a normal month of May. June was bright and sunny through flowering, but the skies opened up for a record 6 inches of rain June 22nd and 23rd, thankfully after the flowering was finished. A typical July was followed by essentially no rain in a hot August, which had the potential to stress the vines; but September and October were cool, with about twice the normal rainfall, and the vines got the water they needed. The hot August weather and intermittent periods of sun in the fall were enough to ripen the fruit fully and produce complex, well-balanced wines.
Vineyard: Mostly West and South facing, planted at 1895 vines per acre and limited to 10 clusters per vine, yielding 2.2 - 3.3 tons per acre, or slightly more than one bottle per vine.
Fruit handling: Picking dates range from October 3 – 26, 2006. Each lot was hand picked by our crew, cooled overnight, hand sorted by cluster, destemmed and sorted again by hand to remove remaining stems and unripe berries. The whole berries were lightly crushed, gravity loaded into our temperature controlled stainless steel tanks, then left to cold soak for 5 days in three different lots.
Vinification: After five days, the wine was warmed and fermented (most underwent a spontaneous fermentation with a “feral” yeasts) for two weeks, with temperatures peaking in the high 80’s and regular pumping over to give oxygen to the fermenting wine. The Syrah was racked into French oak barrels in the middle of November where it under went malolactic fermentation. The wine spent 16 months in barrel, where it was topped and stirred weekly for 6 months, then topped bi-weekly until it was blended, fined, and lightly-filtered in preparation for bottling. The 2006 Syrah was bottled on April 2nd, 2008.