2023 Farm Cottage, Syrah, Ryan Spencer Vineyard, Alfaro Estate, Corralitos, Santa Cruz Mountains.
Ryan Alfaro is on a roll with his Farm Cottage wines, and his latest Syrah release from the ultra cool and long 2023 vintage is a beautifully fresh and pretty wine with dark berries, deep floral aromatics and is delicately spiced with supple medium body. This wine is vibrant, clean and quaffable, showing off boysenberry, blueberry, tart currant and black cherry fruits, along with crushed lilacs, cinnamon, white pepper, subtle fennel, mineral and faint cedar notes.The Syrah grapes were all hand harvested early in November, winemaker Ryan Alfaro says, allowing for an extra 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. There’s such an easiness here that kind of hides the true complexity, but with time I’m sure this Northern Rhône inspired Syrah will get deeper and more savory, patience will be rewarded here.
From vines named after him by his dad, Ryan Alfaro’s Farm Cottage Ryan Spencer Vineyard, as the winery notes, is a Syrah plot that 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. Again as mentioned before, 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. There’s a lot to admire in these Farm Cottage wines, with this youthful Syrah being a very fine effort, and one that will certainly gain in complexity in the bottle, and the Trout Gulch Chardonnay, maybe my favorite, plus the Pinots, which are the main focus, witch should be on your watch list!
($40 Est.) 93 Points, grapelive