2020 SYREN - Organically grown Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills, Spear Vineyards

Vineyard: Spear Vineyards, single clone/single block, 667 on 5BB, north east sloping clay dominant hillsides, mostly east-west row orientation.

Viticulture: Certified organic, 3 x 6 spacing, VSP, hand tended and picked.

Ingredients added during winemaking: grapes, sulfites

We picked twice for this wine, getting two tons of the grapes just before an extreme heat event, and another single ton two weeks later, after the heat. This enabled us to craft a surprising lithe and refreshing warm-climate Pinot Noir even in a very hot vintage. Though this wine has classic Santa Rita Hills smells & flavors (strawberry, black cherry, chaparral), the textures and alcohol skew closer to Oregon.

Both batches of grapes were fully destemmed and allowed to ferment indigenously, with a single punch-down per day in two-ton open-top T-bins. Aged one year in used oak barrels. Bottled unfined & unfiltered. Vegan.

We describe the viticulture practiced at Spear Vineyards as immaculate. On the sorting table, the tight clusters of Pinot Noir are pristine, and always seem to be a much easier sort than many other Pinot vineyards we’ve seen in Santa Rita Hills. With this kind of “no expense spared” winegrowing, we see our job in the winery as merely to not mess it up. We make this wine with as light a touch as possible, so you are tasting the most elegant and seamless expression of this land.

This may be our most age-worth wine to date, and will continue to evolve and develop beautifully for the next 15 years or more.