Variety: Syrah

Vineyard: Falcon Lane

AVA: Russian River Valley, CA

Farming: Organic, Dry Farmed

Harvest Date: 17 and 18 September 2024

Bottling Date: 20 March 2025

Alc: 13.5%

Cases: 60

Falcon Lane is a small backyard Syrah vineyard in Graton, CA, that I have been farming for 5 years.  It had previously been abandoned, and farming it has been a long and slow labor of cleaning up and retraining the vines. The 2023 harvest was the first in which the vines gave enough fruit to allow me to ferment and bottle the Syrah on its own.  The 2024 harvest provided even a bit more fruit, as well as higher consistency and quality overall from the vineyard.

A handful of friends and I picked the fruit across two evenings in mid September.  These picks were combined into one tank at the winery, and fully foot crushed.  Fermentation kicked off after a few days, and continued for 10 days.  Once dry, the Syrah was pressed to tank for a few days, then transferred to two neutral oak barriques to undergo malolactic and age on lees over the winter

In March, the two barrels of Syrah were racked to tank for bottling.

Indigenous yeast fermentation. 20 ppm SO2 added at bottling, no other additions, unfined and unfiltered.