2023 Lucia by Pisoni, Syrah, Soberanes Vineyard, Santa Lucia Highlands.
Just when I thought the Lucia Syrahs couldn’t get any better, this 2023 Soberanes takes into a totally new realm of greatness and completely destroys the gap between old world and new world versions of this grape! This cool vintage and the terroir here form a perfect marriage providing the Pisoni’s some of the most fantastic Syrah grapes ever, not that it was easy or without severe cropping choices, but in the end something incredibly emerged after fermentation, a majestic and gorgeous wine. Powerful, aromatic and loaded with deep fruit and a glorious savory crunch of flavors, this Soberanes shows off boysenberry, damson plum, blueberry compote and black cherry fruits, along with creme de cassis, bitter coco, wild sage, crushed rock, peppercorn, smoky vanilla, sandalwood and licorice. Again this wine is full bodied, with elegant tannins, natural acidity and seamless in style with a Côte-Rotie like personality, and remarkably it is was done with 100% whole bunches. Jeff Pisoni employed very gentle techniques, using carefully hand-picked and sorted grapes that were fermented with native yeast and aged 17 months in carefully selected French oak barrels, with about 40% new wood. Pisoni has a state-of-the-art winemaking facility in the Santa Rosa area and it exclusively uses gravity flow to move the wines, ensuring quality, with total control of the farming and winemaking process from start to finish. This wine, always one of my absolute favorites from Pisoni family. I have said, to some laughter at times, since the 2004 vintage, that Syrah (which is great of granite soils) is the best varietal in the Santa Lucia highlands, and I gotta say this purply/garnet hued and violet laced wine just might prove me right, it is already heavenly in the glass and has decades of pleasure ahead of it, do not miss this vintage.
The other day, I walked the dirt of Garys’ Vineyard and the Soberanes Vineyard, in the Santa Lucia Highlands AVA, with the winegrowers, Gary and Adam Franscioni and Mark Pisoni, who are some of the best grape farmers in California, and the experience reminded me of just how special these vines are. The Soberness Vineyard, cooled by Monterey’s deep underwater canyon that heighten the fierce cold breezes here, as mentioned more than a few times in my reviews, is a fantastic site and is the Pisoni family’s youngest vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands, set over the next ridge from the famed Garys’ Vineyard, but higher up, its on a sandy loamy (decomposed granite) hillside with an almost constant cool breeze, delivering a long hang time and incredible fruit concentration. Soberanes just might be the most exciting plot in the Santa Lucia Highlands right now and as I’ve said in the past, this Lucia Syrah shows why, it’s planted with an excellent set of clones, like the Alban clone (Côte-Rotie) for this Syrah, and makes for one of the best wines in the region. Not only is this Pisoni made wine a stand out, also check out Cattleya, made by Jeff’s wife Bibiana Gonzalez Rave-Pisoni and the Sandlands Syrah by Turley’s winemaker Tegan Passalacqua for comparison, these are some of the best Syrahs in California and come from the Soberanes Vineyard. The combination of Gary Pisoni, a visionary and passionate wine lover, who brought the attention of the world to the Santa Lucia Highlands, his sons Jeff, the winemaker and Mark, who as mentioned is the quiet man behind the unbelievable quality of the grapes, make one of the great teams in California wine and their wines are getting better and better! I highly recommend chasing down the 2021, 2022 and 2023 editions of this Soberanes, they are all exceptional Syrahs, but this 2023 stands above, close to perfect, and will age majestically in the cellars.
($70 Est.) 98 Points, grapelive