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2020 WeatherEye "Estate" Red Mountain Syrah

2020 WeatherEye "Estate" Red Mountain Syrah

97IWR
96JD
95RP
94VN
$79.95

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97

Int'l Wine Review

Todd Alexander has knocked it out of the park with the Estate Syrah from Weathereye. In the glass, it sports a dark purple core with a blueish-tinted rim. Wild blueberry, blue plum, crushed peppercorn, roasted brisket, mountain sagebrush, mocha powder, and scorched clove are wonderfully integrated and beautifully presented. It’s hard to get past the nose because it’s so enticing and gorgeous, but once you do, be prepared for lush huckleberry and black olive tones on the medium to full-bodied palate. Perfect levels of acidity, silky tannins, and a lengthy perfect finish. If you can find this bottle of wine, buy 6 and open one up every other year for the next 12 years. Highly recommended and editor’s choice.

Professional Reviews

96

Jeb Dunnuck

Review Date: 06/2023
Smoky black fruits, leather, ground pepper, violets, and hints of game all emerge from the 2020 Syrah Estate, a voluptuously textured, full-bodied, opulent Syrah that has plenty of tannins, terrific mid-palate density, and outstanding length. It's another gorgeous wine from this team that readers will love.

95

Wine Advocate

Review Date: 05/2023
Beautifully dense, the 2020 Syrah is firm with a dark-fruited nose with a broad-shouldered expression showing a kiss of volatility and juicy blackberry skin, succulent herbs and spices with notions of resinous purple flowers. Full-bodied, open and fresh, the Syrah offers spicy notions of spiced black plums and dark cherries with hints of savory peppercorn notes that sway with fine-grained tannins. The wine continues to unfold and uncoil on the palate, ending with a food-friendly finish. This will benefit from additional years in the bottle. Give it another year or two in the bottle after its release later this year. The wine rested in large-format barrels, 25% new oak. Give it a try. 2,700 bottles produced. 95+ (AM)

94

Vinous

Review Date: 05/2023
Perfumed and savory in the glass, the 2020 Syrah Estate captivates with a spicy mix of dusty rose, incense and wild strawberries. Elegant and velvety in feel, this impresses with its blend of tension and richness, casting luxurious waves of red and black fruits across the palate, perfectly contrasted by salty mineral tones. The 2020 leaves black raspberry and clove nuances over a coating of fine-grained tannins. There's a lot of potential here. The Syrah Estate hails from the highest elevation plantings of Syrah on Red Mountain at 1,220 feet. (EG)

Staff Reviews

RW
Ryan Woodhouse

Ryan Woodhouse

K&L Buyer
WeatherEye Vineyard is one of the most incredible plantings in the USA. A site so radical it's implementation has been 15 years in the making! Every block is intimately fine tuned to the specific altitude, slope, exposure, soil composition an unique qualities of the land. Instead of clearing the land before planting vines, existing native plants have also been incorporated into the vineyard in an effort to capture a true sense of place in the wines that includes the sous bois or garrigue type elements one might find in the wines of the Rhone Valley. The incredibly rocky volcanic soils, constant wind and elongated growing season the elevation brings gives the wines immense concentration and structure. Even though the vines are relatively young, the intensity of the wines here is already formidable. The Syrah from WeatherEye is right up in the same realm as some of Washington's most famous and celebrated bottlings - wines like those from Christophe Baron at Cayuse, Horsepower and Hors Catégorie. The magic of this wine, like all of the WeatherEye wines for me, is the combination of focused power, explosive varietal expression, and a very real sense of place - a savory terroir driven aspect, and a rocky mineral core. The 2020 Syrah has the classic hallmarks of the variety - lifted floral tones contrasted against saturated dark fruit, bramble, seared meat, cracked peppercorn, crushed rock and a touch of scorched earth. Once again, a powerful structure provides ample framework for the wine, but it's not aggressively tannic or backward - despite it's obvious ageing potential you can (and I did) enjoy the wine right now! A wine that is set to shake up the upper echelons of Washington State Syrah.

Notes

WeatherEye Vineyard on the ridge line of Red Mountain in Washington is without doubt one of the most exciting and radical plantings in the USA. The vineyard that is planted in dozens of micro-blocks draped over the peak and north facing aspect of the mountain were areas previously deemed up-plantable. The soils are extremely rocky and consist mostly of fractured basalt. The crest and slopes are constantly buffeted by relentless wind. The vineyard uses numerous different trellising systems, vine densities, and row orientations. Some blocks even have stone walls around individual vines (like La Geria in Lanzarote) to protect them from the harsh environment. When developing the vineyard, native scrub was intentionally left amongst the vines for biodiversity and also in hopes to capture some of the “garrigue” character of this unique site. The wines themselves are made by one of the state's most highly regarded and critically acclaimed winemakers, Todd Alexander. Formerly of Bryant Family, and Cade / Plumpjack in Napa Valley, Todd now makes cult Washington wines including Force Majeure, Pášxa, and The Walls. The buzz about WeatherEye is palpable throughout the wine business. Noted wine writer Alder Yarrow proclaimed: "Mark my words: the greatest wines Washington State has ever produced will come from one of the most ambitious vineyard projects I have ever seen in the United States... these wines [are] about to become some of the most sought-after wines made in Washington."

Details

OriginWashington, United States
Type/VarietalShiraz/Syrah
SKU1684513