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.