2016 Horsepower 'High Contrast Vineyard' Syrah Walla Walla Valley

CRITICAL ACCLAIM



Jeb Dunnuck - "From a vineyard planted in 2013, the 2016 Syrah High Contrast saw loads of stems and mostly neutral barrels. This thrilling wine has a Chave Hermitage-like purity and class as well as gorgeous notes of cassis, black raspberries, smoked earth, and graphite. It's deep, pure and layered, incredibly layered, pure, and long, with a finish that won't quit. This isn't for those looking for an inky, massive wine, but it’s pure class, complete, amazingly long, and elegant. Give bottles a few years in the cellar and it’s going to shine for 15-20 years."


James Suckling - "The first release of this plot. This has brightness to the fruit with a very exuberant freshness, as well as abundant fragrance and a smooth, succulent and sheer feel to the tannins. Abundant, rich purple fruit here, yet there’s real precision. This is a very, very specific wine. Holds long and is mouthwatering at the finish. There's great potential here. Try from 2022."


Robert Parker's Wine Advocate - "The 2016 Syrah High Contrast Vineyard initially wafts from the glass with a rocky dustiness, then reveals an elegant black and red-fruited core of aromas, oozing with seductively bright and focused black raspberry notes, followed by red and purple flowers, a line of stemminess and dried herbs de Provence on the lifted and aromatically complex nose. Medium-bodied on the palate, the wine is ethereal at first, then compounds in the mouth with a mineral tension, the fruit turning a touch tarter across the mid-palate, showing incredible precision and balance. The wine continues to evolve with a fantastic expression and long, drawn-out finish for this young vineyard that was just planted in 2013. Only 335 cases were produced. If you can afford it and you can find it, buy it!"