Breggo Cellars

The stars aligned for this wine. There’s not much Syrah grown in Anderson Valley, which is generally too cold or wet to set much fruit in spring and too cool to ripen it in summer. But 2006 delivered an extraordinary bloom in spring followed by an unusually high number of ripening hours – followed by a long mild autumn. The Zicherman-Roemer vineyard is positioned in the valley to take full advantage of this triple bonus, and it also happens to be right across the highway from Breggo Cellars. Winemaker Ryan Hodgins jumped on the opportunity, picking in the last week of October and letting the wine have another three weeks or so on the skins after harvest. Only bad news is that there were only eight barrels. The wine was just released when I tasted it, and it’s bound to evolve in bottle for at least a year or more.

The fruit aromas are seamless and dark, with evident ripeness and just about everything you could pull out of a Syrah berry, including spice, bramble, blueberries and blood. There’s also some vanilla from new French oak, which fits right in here as a passenger, not the driver. In your mouth the wine is again sweet, ripe, concentrated, and packed with pleasure. The tannins are tight, medium-fine and – at least right now – buzzing from confinement in the bottle. The back end of the wine is a bit closed when I tasted it, so the wine is front-loaded in the palate experience but there is no mistaking the dark ripe fruit aromatics in the finish. Better balance across the palate will come with air and time. But this wine won’t come around again – the fruit (particularly in this vintage) was a one-time deal. If you’re intrigued by the idea of a fully ripe Anderson Valley Syrah, don’t hesitate.

Reviewed June 11, 2008 by Thom Elkjer.