2022 Farm Cottage, Syrah, Ryan Spencer Vineyard, Alfaro Family Vineyards, Santa Cruz Mountains.
From vines named after him by his dad, Ryan Alfaro’s Farm Cottage Ryan Spencer Vineyard Syrah is a stylish and complex deeply hued wine that excites the palate with a dense array of blackberry, damson plum, tangy blueberry, currant and bramble berry fruits, a heady mix of dark florals, spice, earth and wild herbs in support, along with hints of clove, tar, licorice, tapenade and subtle oak notes. This ripe, but vibrant Syrah has a nice textural mouth feel and modest alcohol, making a fine companion to a wide selection of cuisine choices, going great from everything from Basque cheeses to Korean BBQ, with just the right about of cool climate acidity. The response to Ryan’s Farm Cottage label has been amazing and there’s quite a well deserved buzz about these wines, in particular the set of Santa Cruz Mountains Pinots. Ryan worked his dad in the cellar in recent years, after doing a stint with California legend Adam Tolmach at Ojai Vineyards and studying wine in New Zealand. He has brought a lot of new passion to the family business and has, as noted here, put a lot of hard work in to get to this point, with Ryan’s personal project Farm Cottage Wines being a natural extension to these efforts at this small Corralitos estate.
As the winery notes, the Ryan Spencer Vineyard Syrah plot was originally planted back in 2001 by Richard Alfaro, Ryan’s proud dad, on his Corralitos estate using three different and distinct clones. The hilly site, less than 8 miles from the cool Pacific Ocean, is comprised of 7 acres broken into separate blocks on a very steep slopes and up between 450 and 800 feet in elevation. These unique parcels are situated on sandy loam and are clones 470, 877, and 174, for those that are into those things, like myself. Ryan says he hand harvested the grapes on October 6th, allowing for a long hang time, hence the depth and complexity of the fruit. Then he continues, unlike the original Alfaro version, the grapes were fermented 100% whole cluster in an open-top stainless steel tank with those vivid stems adding distinction and pop here. A natural pied de cute (fermentation starter direct from the vineyard) was put into the tank on day two. The must saw gravity rack and returns that were performed twice a day for full, but gentle extraction. The healthy skin fermentation lasted just nine days before Ryan pressed the wine, after which he racked into neutral French oak barrels for an elevage of just about 9 months. This excellent unfiltered, sultry and transparent Syrah gets kinda forgotten behind the Pinots and the fabulous Trout Gulch Chardonnay, but it shouldn’t be missed and I’m even more excited about the 2023 vintage!
($40 Est.) 94 Points, grapelive