This 100% Syrah is a dead ringer for a French Crozes-Hermitage. Notes of black cherries and currants intermixed with tapenade, tar, and spice strike me as very French in orientation. The cool climate of the Sonoma Coast has given the wine good acidity and yet impressive flavor intensity, medium body, and lots of spice and earth.Tel. (510) 845-0693; Fax (510) 845-0689

Give this puppy a good decanting if you open it anytime soon. It’s young and tight as nails. The wine is dark and closed and tannic and acidic, but clean and interesting. Somewhere down deep is a core of spicy black currant, but it’s locked down.——S.H.(9/1/2008)—— 85