Producer Bradford Mountain
Variety Syrah
Vineyard Grist Vineyard
Cases produced 700
French and American oak, 30% new
Country USA
Region California
SubRegion Sonoma County
Appellation Dry Creek Valley
Disclosure This was received as an unsolicited free sample.
The Big Wooden Guy is impressed - Bradford Mountain clearly has a nice hand with Syrah.
Night One
On Night One this was tasted as part of a multi-bottle vertical tasting.
Blackberry and sage made up the nose of this wine.
On the palate, fresh blackcurrant and creme de cassis, together make up the fruit. The sage from the nose is there, too. Redder fruit, including strawberry, showed up on the mid-palate. The mouth-feel was velvety, the tannins extremely smooth. The finish was mid-length. The first impression everybody had was that this first of three Syrahs was superior to the Grist Valley Zinfandels.
Night Two
The Night Two nose is really interesting. There are several different aromas, but the unique one is the sweet woody smokey smell, not of a fire, but of the smoldering of a woodburning iron. It also has blackberry and creme de cassis.
The palate has blackcurrant, fresh and liquor, some sage, and, as it shifts to the mid-palate, applewood-smoked bacon. Throughout the entire palate, way off in the background, is a undercurrent of toasted wood. Tannins are fine, smooth, and mouth-coating.
This is good, but I suspect it will continue to improve with several more years in the cellar. Right now, the fruit is still jammy and dominating, but there are enough interesting possibilities beneath it that some years allowing it to calm down, might pay off brilliantly.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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