Cline Cellars Syrah Los Carneros California - 2005
Where it's from:
>USA
>California
>Carneros
Price per case:
£193.46
Bottle size:
75 cl
Bottles per case:
12
Style:
Powerful Reds
Grapes:
Syrah (Shiraz)
Description:
At the turn of the 20th century, Oakley was home to a number of Portuguese and Italian immigrants who found many similarities to the Mediterranean climate they had left behind. They planted thousands of acres of orchards and vineyards.
Today, a century later, due to the devastation of phylloxera and the encroachment of commercial and residential development, only 600 acres of vineyards remain in this evolving community. Cline Cellars owns and controls 300 of those acres including some of the oldest surviving vines in California.
Cline Cellars began when Fred Cline's maternal grandfather, Valeriano Jacuzzi lived in Oakley and inspired him to go on to to U.C. Davis to study agriculture management. After attaining his degree in 1982, Fred returned to Oakley and founded Cline Cellars.
There he started producing wines and restoring his grandfather’s ancient vines: today the Zinfandel, Carignane and Mourvedre produced from these vines are some of the most unique and historic (not to say intense) wines made in California. In 1991, the winery relocated from Oakley to the Carneros region of Sonoma County. Here Fred pioneered the planting of Rhone varietals including Syrah, Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne.
The grapes come from Los Carneros where the chilly fogs and the steep, north-facing slope of hillside vineyard offer a particularly cool climate for ripening Syrah, lending the wines a pronounced, bright cherry and cracked pepper character. Well-drained, rocky loam soils force the vines to struggle and keep yields extremely low, further concentrating fruit character.
Syrah is the grape that demonstrates its greatest potential for grandeur in the Northern Rhone appellations of Cote-Rotie and Hermitage. It exhibits many of the same brilliant fruit and smoky/tarry characteristics in Carneros. This wine has spent 14 months in oak to produce a ripe fruit flavoured wine with medium-weight tannins and long complex finish.
