2021 SYRAH ESTATE LOT E

The 2021 Heritage Collection are luxury Small Lot wines that represent a vinous dream come true for me. These are the first wines that we have released that are worthy of being named after our children. Lot E is a real stunner that is as beautiful, boisterous and extroverted as the young woman that inspired this wine. Estelle came into our lives just before Christmas of 2000 - I always tell her that she will always be the best Christmas present ever. She never quite wanted to sleep through the night and I remember sleepless nights, holding her tight against my chest and dancing and swaying in the dark, hoping to woo her to sleep. Strangely, she took up dancing at a young age and graced Kristen and I her with the poetry and precision of her dance. She is bright and argumentative and generous and beautiful - all traits that make us so very proud. When working towards crafting a wine special enough to be named after my baby girl, I was immediately drawn to the rare and luxurious "LaLa" wines of Guigal from Cote-Rotie. They are first and foremost rare and exceedingly expensive treats, but when opened with enough bottle age, the wines sing. These wines are aromatic, floral, exotic, and deep and dense enough to keep you coming back to your glass for another swirl and sip. They are intoxicating and inspiring. Quite simply, they remind me of Estelle. In order to achieve the desired wine we began experimenting with various levels of Syrah + Viognier co-fermentation and settled on a high percentage of Viognier in the final wine. Strangely and counterintuitively enough, adding Viognier (a white grape) to a red wine during fermentation, acts to make the resulting wine darker. Lot E contains a generous 10% whole cluster Viognier, which lends a crazy lifted, honied-floral aroma to the wine. This helps to balance out the dark red fruits and damp earth notes of the Syrah. Syrah and Viognier act to improve the other and result in a wine that is even better than the sum of its parts. We had been playing in the cellar for several years now, hoping to achieve this wine. We will most likely not be able to craft it each and every vintage, but thankfully, the 2020 vintage presented an incredible opportunity to craft an amazing expression of this wine.  Lot E is a quintessential Syrah and it is special as the young woman who inspired it. Only 50 cases of this stunning wine were bottled.