2020 Epoch Syrah Block B

The 2020 Syrah Block B comes from a single parcel in the Paderewski Vineyard and is all Syrah that spent 18 months in 55% new French oak. It might be the wine of the vintage and offers a powerful, concentrated, flawlessly balanced profile carrying bloody black and blue fruits, ground pepper, smoked meat, and graphite-like aromas and flavors. It's always one of the more masculine wines in the lineup, yet it somehow stays graceful and light on its feet, with ripe tannins, no hard edges, and a great, great finish. It will keep for 10-12 years. Epoch continues to pull heavily from their estate Paderewski Vineyard, but they’re also releasing new cuvées from their York Mountain estate as those vines come online. I expect this trend to continue. Looking at the wines reviewed here, I was able to taste all their 2020s now from bottle, and they’ve clearly produced some of the top wines in this challenging vintage. If there’s any smoke in these wines, I was unable to find it, and they have remarkable purity in their aromatics and ripe, polished tannins. I was also able to go through the 2021s with winemaker Jordan Fiorentini, and there are some legit genius wines in here that are as good as anything out there. I’d wager these 2021s are some of the finest wines produced from this estate, and I can’t wait to try them again from bottle next year.