
2017 Foley Estates Syrah, Sta. Rita Hills
Winemaker Notes
This wine is a deep, dark, almost inky red color. It has concentrated
aromas of blue and black fruit, cured meats, white pepper, freshly broken
earth and leather. This is a big wine, exhibiting the expected acidity of a
cool climate Syrah and finishes with pleasant barrel spices and subtle
hints of vanilla pipe tobacco.
Composition
100% Syrah
Wine Specs
Vintage
2017
Varietal
Syrah
Appellation
Sta. Rita Hills
Acid
6.5 g/L
pH
3.74
Aging
18 months; French, American and Hungarian oak, 60% new
Bottling Date
June 11, 2019
Alcohol %
14.3
Production Notes
The 2017 vintage started off with an extended cool growing season
staging us for a later than normal start date to harvest. We had some
concerns, but just like clockwork, we got some intense Labor Day heat
which pushed the vines to maturation. The disease pressure was low and
quality was good so having a little patience was a good virtue to possess.
We also had the anomaly of a hard frost the first week of October with
temperatures dipping down to 29° in some of the lower elevation blocks
pushing us to pull in the last bit of fruit quickly. Harvest wrapped up on
October 23 with mother nature delivering us a roller coaster of weather
but with it a nuance and diversity of fruit expression. Our 2017 Syrah comes from the Syrah Noir clone, which is perfectly
matched to our estate vineyard. After picking by hand, the grapes were
carefully de-stemmed and transferred to open-top tanks for a three-day
cold soak prior to inoculation. After roughly two weeks, the wine was
pressed and racked into a combination of French, American and
Hungarian oak barrels for 18 months of aging in sixty percent new oak.
Vineyard Notes
Serene. That’s the best descriptor for our estate vineyard. Located in the
Sta. Rita Hills AVA of Santa Barbara County, these stunning hillsides
feature vines that climb from 500 to 1,000 feet above sea level. The soils
are marine-based and the weather is consistently cool thanks to moist
ocean breezes that sweep the property daily. The vineyard is farmed with
the painstaking care and attention usually associated with much smaller
properties. In fact, the site was originally conceived as a series of individual
micro-vineyards delineated by soil, exposure, elevation, grade,
rootstock and clone.