Durell Vineyard, Sonoma Valley, Sonoma-Carneros

Ed Durell began his vineyard in 1979, on an old cattle ranch at the base of the western hills in Sonoma Valley. He'd been a food broker, and he hired a colleague and old family friend, Steve Hill, to plant and raise grapes on the ranch. At the request of a fairly large Sonoma Valley winery, Steve planted about six acres of Syrah on the ranch, on mostly flat ground, in rocky, adobe-clay soils in 1980. That Syrah block was responsible for some wines that made believers of a lot of wine people who'd never given the variety much consideration in California before. But it was planted on AXR1 rootstock, and by '87 or '88, had begun to show signs of infestation from phylloxera. In response to that ominous development, some acreage in the western portion of the property, within the Carneros AVA, was planted to Syrah in 1990, in seven small vineyard blocks. (This new project was not without its complications. No one in California really knew much about rootstocks other than AXR1, and even less about the interaction between site, soil, rootstock and scion variety. I've been fortunate to be able to use the fruit from the two new vineyard blocks, of the seven planted, where those interactions resulted in the successful ripening of high-quality Syrah grapes. The other five small blocks were uprooted after the 1996 growing season.) The two Syrah blocks from this new planting that produce grapes for us are on red, rocky clay-loam soils, primarily volcanic in origin, on east-facing slopes. (The ideal exposure in California, in my opinion, on which to grow Syrah.)

Meanwhile, the phylloxerated block, which had been sold by Ed Durell in 1993 (though I continued to buy some of those grapes from the new owner), was uprooted after the '98 harvest, so all that remains of Syrah at Durell, in current production, are the two blocks in the Carneros section of the ranch from the 1990 planting. These blocks produce fairly full-bodied, dark red wines, best-suited to a style that balances power and elegance, wines with seductive aromas, lively, silky mouthfeel, and fine tannins.