2018 Armada Vineyard Syrah

A beautiful as well as a classic expression of this cuvée, the 2018 Syrah Armada Vineyard reveals a medium ruby/plum color that's almost translucent. This is followed by a big, exotic, Rocks-driven nose of blackcurrants, sweet mulch, violets, bacon fat, charcoal, and exotic spices (among other things). Incredibly complex aromatically, with plenty of savory herb, graphite, and earthy notes, it nevertheless has a wonderful core of sweet fruit. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, with ripe tannins, a layered, elegant mouthfeel, and terrific balance, it opens up nicely with air and will benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age. It's capable of evolving for two decades. This is a hard mailing list to crack, yet winemaker Christophe Baron continues to deliver the goods, releasing singular, exotic, incredible wines from his bevy of single vineyards in the Rocks region of the Walla Walla Valley. The 2018s show the rich yet focused, straight, elegant style of the vintage beautifully and are going to be incredibly age-worthy. While the Syrahs get all the love, don’t miss his Grenache, Tempranillo, and Bordeaux blends. His 2018 Grenache God Only Knows might be the finest Grenache I’ve ever tasted outside of France and few California releases.

Bright, dark red with ruby highlights. Subdued, slightly low-toned aromas of dark cherry, black raspberry, game and smoke. At once savory and sweet on entry, then meaty and rather backward in the middle palate, a bit lower-toned than the Cailloux, En Cerise and En Chamberlain offerings, with its game, soy sauce and soil tones overshadowing fruits, spices and flowers. Shows the least mid-palate lift of these wines today but this savory, concentrated wine is still rather brooding. Finishes with firm but ripe tannins that coat the sides of the mouth, good subtle length and a touch of dryness. This wine showed more fruit with 24 hours in the recorked bottle but remained firmly tannic. (Tasted June 2021; Published September 2021)