2021 Peay Vineyards Les Titans Estate Syrah, West Sonoma Coast
After tasting this wine last spring, I decided to hold back more bottles in our library so I could share it with customers for the next 20 to 30 years. This is a wine for our record books that will sit alongside the magnificent Peay Syrahs from the 2005, 2007, 2016, and 2018 vintages. It may just be at the top of that heap. I unconsciously start to bounce on my toes when I take a sip. The nose pulls you in with a deep blackberry core of fruit with lavender incense notes dancing around an inky, graphite quality I find tantalizing. In the mouth this presents as a lamb reduction sauce—meaty and iron inflected—with an incredible depth of flavor. Despite coming from a cold site this is not a lean wine. There is plenty of density to the wine but it has moderate alcohol and fresh acidity. This wine is excellent right now and has the structure and profile to age, well, forever. If you like Peay Syrah, buy a case, minimum.
Decanter: 97 pts. Wine of feral herbaceousness, ferrous minerality and meaty, briny depths. Effusive aromas of wild violets, smoky clove, savoury meatiness, briny black olives, and dried herbs. Palate offers pulsing tension and verve. Red currants and tart sour cherries are given over to crushed black stone, smoky soy and chicory root, finishing with white and green peppercorn
Vinous/Galloni: 97 pts One of the best wines I have tasted from Peay. Inky dark blue/purplish fruit, gravel, incense, chocolate, licorice, cured meat and blackberry saturate the palate in this dense, explosive Syrah. The 2021 is exceptionally balanced, not to mention so vivid and beautiful
$66/btl during release, $70/btl after, if still in stock.
The terroir of the West Sonoma Coast, and specifically our estate vineyard in Annapolis, imprints all of our wines in very precise ways. This is abundantly evident in our Syrahs which have a combination of red fruit aromas, high acidity, low alcohol, and meaty, savory notes that you will not find in Syrah from any other region, This singularity is why more people should grow Syrah out here. It is why we should grow more Syrah. But, there is a catch. It is very tricky to grow a variety that has a tendency to be affected by various diseases in a cold, wet place like the West Sonoma Coast. Those of you who have been drinking our Syrah for the past two decades are aware our production amounts vary from year to year and have been meagre at times. The wines are fantastic but we have had to change trellising, nutrient protocols, pruning methods—just about everything—to get the plants to yield a decent-sized crop and to be healthy. Starting this winter, we plan to rip up a few underperforming blocks (not just low yielding but also the least exciting tasting blocks) and will start anew with Syrah cuttings from the blocks that are healthy and make wines we like.
Though we will make very little Syrah for the next few years, what we have is available almost exclusively to our mailing list.