2018 Cayuse Syrah En Chamberlin Vineyard
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Tasting notes
Boasting a firm, dense and serious nose, the 2018 Syrah en Chamberlin Vineyard expresses notions of peppered beef jerky, cured venison, roasted plum and wilted lavender in the glass. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is sturdy and broad with elements of crème de cassis, bone broth, impressive mineral tension and healthy tannins that grip the gumline. It conclude with a long, lingering and subtly smoked finish. The wine aged for 19 months in mostly neutral French oak. Let this one rest for another year in the cellar before opening, and drink through the next decade and a half. Decanting is recommended. Just over 5,200 bottles were filled.
Critic scores
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
Lots of Graves-like smoked earth, tobacco, and cold fireplace notes emerge from the 2018 Syrah En Chamberlin Vineyard. It shows more classic gamey Syrah notes with air, offering ample amounts of bloody blue fruits, iron, and peppered meat nuances. Rich, medium to full-bodied, and nicely concentrated on the palate, with gorgeous tannins, it has the purity and elegance that's the hallmark of the vintage, no hard edges, and a great finish. It's just another spectacular, singular Syrah from this estate that will benefit from short-term cellaring and keep for 20+ years. This is a hard mailing list to crack, yet winemaker Christophe Baron continues to deliver the goods, releasing singular, exotic, incredible wines from his bevy of single vineyards in the Rocks region of the Walla Walla Valley. The 2018s show the rich yet focused, straight, elegant style of the vintage beautifully and are going to be incredibly age-worthy. While the Syrahs get all the love, don’t miss his Grenache, Tempranillo, and Bordeaux blends. His 2018 Grenache God Only Knows might be the finest Grenache I’ve ever tasted outside of France and few California releases.
Bright, deep red-ruby. Complex yet rather brooding aromas of dark berries, black olive, tar, black pepper and steak sauce. Juicy and intense on entry, then savory, broad and slightly meaty in the middle palate, delivering a restrained sweetness and building creaminess with aeration. Sexy meat and soil tones complicate dark fruits, mocha and black olive. Quite briney and alive on the firmly tannic, slowly building, palate-saturating aftertaste. Very Syrah in an Old World style. More tannic than the Cailloux and En Cerise bottlings; despite its superb mid-palate plushness, his wine still needs time to soften and expand. My bottle evolved beautifully with aeration, showing smoother tannins and a better balance of fruit to funk. (Tasted June 2021; Published September 2021)