With our warm days and cool nights, the Applegate Valley is an ideal growing environment for Syrah, and we take advantage of this by planting four Syrah clones across our 95-acre site in three soil types to showcase how well Syrah can capture that unique sense of place in the glass. Troon’s 2023 Syrah is a blend of three of those Syrah clones: 50% clone 470, 33% clone 174, and 17% Joseph Phelps clone.

The fruit for the 2023 Syrah was harvested between September 15th and September 23rd, 2023, and put into open-top bins and one large concrete vessel, with on average 30% whole clusters. The inclusion of whole clusters can enhance Syrah’s spice and pepper characteristics, broaden the mid-palate, and add more freshness to the wine.

Like all Troon Vineyard wines, the ferments started spontaneously from indigenous yeasts with no additives. The wine was handled gently during fermentation, with just one punch-down or foot-treading per day, and it finished roughly three to four weeks later. The wine from the concrete fermentor was pressed off and returned to age in concrete, while the bin-fermented wines were pressed off and aged in neutral French oak barrels. The Syrah aged for 18 months in the cellar before being blended from roughly 50% concrete-aged and 50% barrel-aged, and bottled unfined and unfiltered, with a small dose of sulfur added at bottling.