Winemaker's Notes
Balancing of high-toned vs. brooding characteristics is in play similar to the blending of Huntsman. However, in this case it is all within the scope of one variety: Syrah. Calypso vineyard has a wealth of expressions, primarily based on soil depth. Otis Holt has explored, mapped these differences and experimented to an exhaustive degree with rootstock, plant spacing and clonal selections of Syrah.
This bottling is drawn from portions of this complicated palette of varietal Syrah components to illustrate what I see as the finer facets of this variety in the Russian River Valley. At its best, in my opinion, it is neither fruit-forward nor recalcitrant. Like Goldilocks would say ‘just right.’
This wine leads with fresh loam, graphite, fresh venison, Greek, salt-cured olives and then allows blackberry notes to emerge from within, morphing into white-pepper and honeysuckle blossom nuances. The finish is long and graceful with a beautiful decrescendo where every note of the phrase is still intensely played while the volume decreases with each successive note. At the end of the phrase, even though the note is no longer produced, the sound remains in the room as an echo – so does the wine’s flavor.
