Karly Wines

We made the first Syrah wine from our vines in 1990. For the first several years it featured lively strawberry character, but not a lot of depth. After five years it began to intensify and in 1998 and 1999 we began to make the grippy vinous spicy wines we originally hoped for. Then came four years of disaster, the wines fell apart and became nasty in the winery. At first we blamed ourselves and spent a lot of time changing our winemaking methods but never fixed the problem. We spent a lot of time bothering the enology faculties at Davis and Fresno without result. Several years later we heard of a similar sounding problem in the Paso Robles area and the cause was not the winery at all but occurred in the vineyard. Our plants came from a common nursery source.

Just as this ugly run started, we decided that despite the success we had achieved in the first ten years, our Syrah vines were not totally happy and we had enough farming experience to realize we could do a better job of growing. We decided to replant Syrah in a different location on our property and use an unusual trellis system. In 2000 we did so, and while we were doing it we chose to plant several rootstock-scion combinations. Two years later we decided to re-orient the trellis direction from north-south to east-west, and did so without disturbing the grapes, an almost incomprehensible project. But that is another story. 2004 was the first pick from these new vines, and you can imagine our thrill and relief when the wine was not only excellent but the vines thrived on the new trellis. The wine has the signature berry-currant and meat taste of Syrah and surprising body for such a young vineyard. It is exciting to contemplate what may evolve in the next ten to twenty years given the auspicious beginning...