2023 Wallula Vineyard Syrah

Winemaker Notes

Dark, brooding, iron-fisted, yet softened at the edges with violet and dusk. Wallula has always carried the weight of stone, but this year there is mercy alongside its muscle. It tastes like the power emerging from the delicately balanced basalt pillars by which it grows.

100% Wallula Vineyard

Pair with: Leonard Cohen – Anthem

Vintage Notes

The season began just as the previous one ended with calm and silence. Winter carried a heavy weight as snow pressed into the soil and rains penetrating deep. Moisture that would carry these vines well into their development. Spring arrived late. Budbreak lagged and bloom delayed. We sweated every day looking at the calendar, worried and wondering if the vintage would ever catch up as it were in 2022. The vines always seem to know that time is not obedient. And, they moved at their own rhythm, as they always do.

Summer followed with kindness. No punishing heat spikes and no withering scorch. There was just steady warmth. The days were golden and the nights were cool – the balance of the oft-spoken diurnal shift. Veraison took its time as ripening was slow and clusters colored at a glacial pace. September arrived and suddenly the vintage revealed itself. 2023 was balanced and assured. This vintage seemed to know itself even before we fully came to understand.

Harvest reflected that same cadence. There were no mad dashes, no panicked phone calls at 4 a.m. Fruit arrived when it was ready and confident. We picked, we processed, we fermented, we barreled and pressed, we put the wines in to a deep sleep. The cellar hummed with the rhythm of a season in harmony and balance. The wines that emerged carry that composure. They are wines of presence and not performance; they are not in a hurry to impress. Put simply, they are present.