Grist Vineyard Syrah, Dry Creek, Sonoma 2022

Syrah has always been the varietal that speaks to me most - it has a wild elegance and tension that comes out when done in a restrained style. In 2016, I moved to the Northern Rhône for the year just to understand this grape better. 

Sitting high above the Dry Creek Valley atop Bradford Mountain (1,000 feet elevation), this Syrah has more in common with the Sonoma Coast than with Dry Creek Valley. Only 15 miles from the ocean as the crow flies and perched up above the fogline, Grist Vineyard has a long, temperate growing season that allows for complex and developed flavors at lower potential alcohol. There’s a fantastic natural acidity to the grapes from here that brings freshness and verve. The soils here are Boomer loam, a red volcanic rock that gives low yields and concentrated fruit. The vines are trained in double cordon.

This organically farmed Syrah block was planted in 1983, unusually old for California Syrah. The oldest Syrah vines in the state are found in heritage mixed vineyards where they are interplanted with Grenache, Mission, and Alicante, but the oldest modern plantings began in 1975 with Gary Eberle’s cuttings from Chapoutier in Tain l’Hermitage. In 1977, Joseph Phelps released the first varietal bottling of Syrah in the 20th century (Patrick Comiskey’s book ‘American Rhône’ presents an excellent history of Syrah in California). In 1980, Jim Clendenen, Adam Tolmach, and Bob Lindquist convinced a grower to graft a block of Petite Sirah to Syrah (Black Bear Block). Bill Hambrecht and his neighbor Fred Peterson, both Rhône lovers, decided to plant Syrah on Bradford Mountain soon after using Gary Eberle’s cuttings by way of Ray Teldeschi.

These are the oldest vines at Grist, as prior plantings were on the ill-advised AXR rootstock that succumbed to phylloxera in the early 80s. The old vine Syrah block is Estrella clone planted on St George rootstock. St George is known for being drought tolerant, vigorous, and for producing looser elongated clusters. Looser clusters result in less disease pressure, and fewer interventions required to keep the fruit quality pristine. Though St George felt out of favor for many years for being overly vigorous (with drought sensitive 101-14 gaining precedence), with old vines on thin topsoil over volcanic rock this added vigor manages to keep the yields reasonable. As climate change accelerates, viticulturists like Steve Matthiasson turn back to St George for its drought tolerance.

Just adjacent to the old vine Syrah block are a few rows of Viognier planted in 1996. The intention had been to plant more Syrah, but a nursery misidentification resulted in Viognier being planted. Given the kismet of it all, the Hambrechts decided to keep the Viognier for co-fermenting with the Syrah. The yields on the Viognier vary wildly each year, but in 2022 about 2% Viognier was co-fermented with the Syrah. Beyond counterintuitively giving more color to the wine, I find that co-fermenting with Viognier brings out the lifted, pretty aromatics of Syrah.

Vintage Notes

2022 was an unusual vintage. Winemakers throughout Sonoma and Mendocino found that phenolic maturity and acid dropping lagged behind sugar development. Alcohols were generally higher, but so was acidity. I chose to pick Grist Syrah at a slightly higher alcohol than normal (13.8%) to avoid the green and underripe flavors I found at 13% potential alcohol. This wine has stronger tannins that in years past, a bit more acid, and a profile that lends itself to 4 or more years’ aging in bottle. If 2021 has tannins reminiscent of pomegranate seeds, then 2022 has Cornas tannins. The fruit leans towards fresh blackberry, like biting into one that still has a zing of acid.

Grist Vineyard is named for the old grist mill on the property from when the mountaintop was first planted to Zinfandel in the late 1800s by Dry Creek’s early Italian immigrants. The Hambrecht family has farmed Grist Vineyard for 4 generations.

One-third whole cluster fermentation with about 2% destemmed Viognier co-fermented. Aged for 11 months in 6th use French oak barrels.