Winemakers in Walla Walla Make Syrahs that evince the quality of the region’s terroir
by Shane McGoey
How is success measured? By commercial gain? Economic viability? By recognition or praise? To three Walla Walla, Washington winemakers the answer seems to lie in the work itself.
“I came to Washington to make Syrah and Rhône varieties,” says Greg Harrington, Master Sommelier, founder and co-winemaker for Gramercy Cellars, one of Washington’s flagship wineries, which in recent years has made the transition to 100% sustainability with each of its estate vineyards now certified organic. There is a directive at Gramercy to focus on single-vineyard wines from vineyards such as Les Collines and Forgotten Hills. This is predicated on Harrington’s belief that these sites “balance the structure and earthiness of the Old World with the fruit of the New World.”
“Syrah is a terroir grape,” says Jeremy Eubanks, a winemaker at Va Piano Vineyards who moonlights as a sommelier at The Thief, a Walla Walla wine bar and retail shop. “It’s like [Pinot Noir] the way it shows itself, shows the place it’s grown in so well.” This might explain the difficulty for consumers in pinning down the grape. Walla Walla is a dry region based on basalt but with incredibly diverse soil types from the foothills of the Blue Mountains down to the torrid western reaches of the valley where you lose twenty inches of rain. Vineyard distinction in wine is something consumers have come to expect from the staid Burgundy, yet Walla Walla is still in its infancy.
Syrah is also a chameleon grape, which is why in the right hands and the right place it can produce a transcendent wine, but without the right touch, Eubanks warns, “it is not easy to grow, because they want to be wild, they are savage at heart.” Syrah, incidentally, is also what compelled Eubanks to relocate to Walla Walla.
One region where Syrah and other Rhône varieties have found an identity (and a cult following) is in The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater AVA located along the Oregon border. This is the home of Christophe Baron’s revered Cayuse Vineyards. It is the land of cobbled loam and (what enophiles call) “funk.” Though the latter is not a descriptor which Brooke Delmas Robertson associates with her own vineyard. Robertson is the Director of Viticulture for SJR Vineyard in The Rocks District, which grows Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Viognier, and Cinsault, and produces Rhône-style wines under the label Delmas.
“The minerality you taste is salt,” says Robertson, “it lifts and smooths the profile of the wines. Our wines express more of a garrigue, a savory character that can be associated with bacon fat, hoisin, five spice, and nutmeg.” Robertson believes these characteristics are attributed by the finer (less rocky) soil deposits of SJR, yielding a more delicate and elegant wine. Here is one example of Syrah’s full potential realized in the right hands and place.
Of course, there is a litany of things a winemaker can do in the cellar to corrupt or veil Syrah’s character. There is plenty of mediocrity in winemaking to go around. Fortunately, we are in the midst of a renaissance of noninterventionism in winemaking, the pendulum returning from the era of Robert Parker’s ink, jam, and cedar. Vintners are harvesting earlier, preserving in their wines a backbone of acidity, therefore a wine that ages well. Harrington picks his Syrah on a balance of acid and sugar that he likens to packaged sweet and sour packets: “Zingy acidity with a sense of sweetness.” He says they also look and taste for dark seeds that crunch like un-popped popcorn kernels. Gramercy Cellars uses native fermentations and has lowered all of their sulfur dioxide regimen to, once again, better represent the vineyard.
“We’re tapering our new oak at Va Piano back to zero,” says Eubanks. “We’re making five different single-vineyard Syrahs and one blend to tell the story of Walla Walla and a singular vintage.” This is something you can’t do to the same effect with Cabernet Sauvignon, which tends to be over-planted and travels almost too well. Also, while making “Cab” a winemaker is afforded the luxury of masking its flaws with new oak; such a practice would totally overwhelm Syrah (save for very old vines in the Northern Rhône), and its terroir would get lost in the morass of winemaking. Syrah, like Pinot Noir, is just too fastidious.
One practice, though, which lends to Syrah’s flavor profile but doesn’t rob of terroir is stem inclusion. Va Piano Vineyards has taken to whole cluster fermentation, and Greg Harrington has been seen around town wearing a “STEMS RULE!” T-shirt.
“Stems in everything,” Harrington says, “I just don’t feel any Rhône-based wine is complete without stems. Most of our wines are 80%–100% whole cluster. Stems add complexity, aromatic intensity and a freshness that is missing from wines fermented without stems.”
When I asked these vintners what makes Syrah so suitable to Walla Walla, Harrington responded flatly: “Hillsides, diurnal shift [which allows the grape to respire and thereby preserve acidity], and altitude.”
“Growers are pushing the limits of altitude,” Eubanks picks up, “they’re planting at 3,000 feet on Lewis Peak and in North Fork at Elevation Vineyard which was uncharted territory just a couple of years ago.”
Viticulturists are also experimenting with new training methods. Robertson and company at SJR Vineyard even invented their own MHT (mini-head-trained) system to combat vine freeze from the harsh Walla Walla winters. The MHT is effectively a gobelet vine with a trellis. Now, instead of cutting the vines down to the ground to maintain a crop, being so low to the ground Robertson is able to bury the whole of the vine for winter. This is a far cry from the days of uniform VSP training and exposed fruit zones in Washington. Viticulturists are adapting to their soils, aspects and microclimates and adopting specific techniques for their own sites. This is the advent of that vineyard distinction exemplified by Burgundy.
When I asked Eubanks if Walla Walla had realized its full potential he responded: “Not when people are still exploring.” So, not yet.
There is still growth and experimentation and work to be done. Though Syrah may not be the economic driver for Walla Walla these winemakers came to grow and nurture it; and though their wines have garnered international recognition and even fame, this is seemingly not what drives them to do it. In each of their cases success is quantified by the passion that is fulfilled. Aristotle wrote that: “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I would conclude that they are content in doing what nature has assigned them.
