Ruben Solorzano Syrah 2021

Stolpman’s Pre-Clonal, Own Rooted Projects
In 2007, our vineyard manager Ruben Solorzano embarked on the most ambitious project in the new world – gathering pre-clonal vine material from some of the world’s best vineyards, and then planting those vines without rootstock at our vineyard in Ballard Canyon. This vine material was planted own rooted with 2.5 x 3 foot spacing allowing for 6,000 vines per acre, which produce wines unlike anything we had ever tasted. Each acre can only be worked by hand – requiring the full-time human labor of one person per year, per acre to bring these wines to you. There are no tractors. There are no short cuts. This is what we’ve been working on since 2007 and we’re excited to share it with you.

Grape Whisperer, Ruben Solorzano planted the first test vineyard that would pave the way for the other GREAT PLACES vineyards back in 2007.  Ruben crammed 6,000 pre-clonal Syrah vines (that he had secretly acquired from Cȏte Rȏtie) onto one beautiful hillside in marching rows of diagonal trellises directly above Ballard Creek.  
Cocoa, coffee, and forest eschew one of the blackest-leaning Stolpman Syrah cuvees into unchartered depths.  The aroma brings me back to the dark, subterranean cellars of Dm. Auguste Clape in Cornas, France.  But once on the palate, a ripe red wave dominates, still coated by the chocolate of the nose, like some magical Parisian red-berry confection.  Only hints of wildness fringe the pure, driving largess. The wine already comes across civilized with tannins checked by the big, beautiful body.