2020 Descendants Liegeois Dupont - Syrah
Tasting notes
Wild blueberry, dried ginger, white pepper, roasted coffee beans, orange peel, toffee and a touch of spicy cured meats. Really pretty tart entry with a pleasantly full mid-palate and flavors of wild blueberry, toffee, wet forest floor, coffee, and a slight hint of vanilla and wild mushroom on the finish.
Cellaring: This wine is lovely now but, like other Red Mountain wines, should age well, probably peaking in 5 years, but still very drinkable at 10 to 15 years years old.
Grapes are from Les Gosses Vineyard, which is in the Red Mountain AVA, and has both the Joseph Phelps and Tablas Creek clones. The wine was destemmed and partially crushed into stainless steel fermenters where it was pumped over twice daily until desired tannin extraction was achieved. It was then pressed to barrels where it underwent malo-lactic fermentation, then racked off lees and 100% barrel aged in 47% new oak and puncheons for 21 months. The new oak and puncheons consisted of 95% American and 5% French.
Harvest: 2020 was a warm growing season overall and while it was nowhere near the hot vintage of 2015, we did see some drier conditions. This dry, warm year coupled with lower yields let us with a crop that was earlier to mature. 2020 left us with many uncertainties, but from what we have seen of this vintage so far, the resulting wines are aromatically intense with palates.
| Vintage | 2020 |
| Varietal | Syrah |
| Varietal Composition | 100% Syrah |
| Appellation | Red Mountain |
| Vineyard | Les Gosses |
| Acid | 5.7 g/L |
| PH | 4.02 |
| Aging | This wine is lovely now but, like other Red Mountain wines, should age well, probably peaking in 5 years, but still very drinkable at 10 to 15 years years old. |
| Alcohol | 14.00% |
| Wine Style | Syrah |
| Volume | 750 ml |
| Bottling Date | 07/01/2022 |
| Cases Produced | 2355 x 6 bottle cases |
