Desire Lines Griffin's Sky Vineyards Syrah, Mount Veeder, USA 2023

The 2023 vintage was picture perfect at Sky Vineyards – a wet winter and spring, a cool to moderate growing season with just a bit of heat in early October to push fruit across the finish line. The fruit was fermented un-inoculated with 33% whole cluster for three weeks in tank; drained and pressed to a single 500-liter barrel, and left there on fine lees without racking, fining, or filtration for 15 months before bottling. The wine has a quiet tensile strength to it, befitting the cool vintage, with Sky’s usual supple tannins and soaring aromatics – black cherry, wild blueberry, lavender, cedar, and an herbal and minty top-note that comes from the volatile oils of the yerba santa plant that grows wild along the edge of our Upper block of Syrah.

"The 2023 Syrah Sky Vineyards is fabulous. What a wine! Complex and engaging in the glass, the 2023 offers up a beguiling mix of dried herbs, lavender, blueberry and cloves, all supported by mountain structure and the brisk acids of a late-ripening year. Readers with classically leaning palates will absolutely adore this."  Vinous 96