Discounts on "Nook & Cranny" Syrah are available only to ACTIVE Terroir Exclusives and Terroir Exclusives PLUS wine club members.

2007 Syrah "Nook & Cranny"
	Quantity in Basket: none Code: SYNC2007 Price:$50.00 Shipping Weight: 4.00 pounds
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2007 SYRAH "NOOK & CRANNY" Sta. Rita Hills, Estate Grown Winemaker’s Notes: Syrah grown west of Highway 101 in the Santa Ynez Valley can be extraordinary. The trick is in getting it thoroughly ripe. Our vineyard is under a heavy influence from the ocean, and like the rest of the Santa Rita Hills, it’s very cool and breezy through out the growing season. In fact, most of our ranch is too cool to consistently ripen Syrah. With the exception of Burgundy, I suppose, the prevailing wisdom says that great vineyards in the northern hemisphere ideally face south or west, so as to insure that their vines get plenty of sun. But with Syrah we have found it necessary to plant on east facing hillsides, out of the wind, where it is actually a couple of degrees warmer through out the day. With 95% of our vineyards facing the wrong way, we are only talking about a few acres of small adjacent hillsides. But I’ll take it, because on these hillsides is a beautiful matrix of gravelly loam and shattered sandstone; exactly the kind of stuff that intimately governs the vigorous nature of Syrah, while still allowing it to ripen. What we have are two little viticultural sweet spots, the NOOK & CRANNY on our ranch for the growing of world class Syrah. The downside, of course, is that we can’t make very much of this stuff. The upside is that the other 95% of our ranch is Mecca for growing Pinot Noir, so it’s not like I am loosing any sleep at night. This year’s NOOK & CRANNY is chock-full of fruit and its signature white pepper spice in the nose. There’s also a bit of sandal wood and an almost pie doughy quality to it. In the mouth, it’s like drinking chocolaty, blackberry nectar that is balanced nicely by its ripe tannins. It’s definitely another good one. Cheers, Bryan Technical Notes: VARIETAL COMPOSITION: 100% Syrah VINEYARDS: Babcock Estate FINISHED WINE: Residual Sugar: Dry, pH: 3.74, TA: 7.2 gm/L, Alcohol: 14.3% TIME IN BARRELS: 22 months, 33% new French oak BOTTLING DATE: May, 2009 TOTAL PRODUCTION: 218 cases 12/750 ML RELEASE DATE: November, 2009 Click Here for an Adobe Reader PDF version of Bryan Babcock's vintage note on 2007 Syrah, "Nook & Cranny".