Been a fan of Chris Tynan’s wines for a very long time. For those of you who don’t know, he is the head of winemaking at Cliff Lede, and this is his personal project. What’s cool is that he gets to make this at Cliff Lede which is a state of the art facility. This is not some custom crush pad like thing. No expense is spared in making this.
Anyhow, he has sourced some of the best raw material in the valley. Basically sniffing out old vine vineyards and blocks that are too small to move the needle for larger producers that need volume to survive.
He doesn’t release on a fixed schedule. This is actually his first release if about 2 years, and he’s releasing 2018 vintage, which is insane.
The Meleagris Gallopavo is MacDonald level quality, and he barely makes a 100 cases. The Syrah, is probably the best pure syrah made in CA, certainly the best sold for less than $150 bottle, I mean think Chave but the napa version of it.
He sometimes releases a 3rd wine, and this time he’s got a mid-range cab from a St. Helena Vineyard, Corbett. I heard that Grace Family now owns that vineyard and is looking at $300+ for the same fruit under their label.
I tasted this with him back in Feb and it is lights out. I mean this might be the best $125 cab out there, and I’m not joking.
Anyhow, if you’re looking for mid-range priced cab and great syrah, you really should check this out. Big fan of the guy!
Big agreement here. I’d add that every once in a while, Chris adds a NV cab-syrah blend, and somehow the $250 cab plus the $75 syrah end up in a bottle that costs $35-45. If you’re at my house and I’m serving this with dinner, it means I like you.
Yeah I am on the fence and will probably do both as $250 is definitely at the top of my threshold as well …Sigh I swear every week that I’m not ordering anymore wine and then get slammed …Today was Roy Piper and then this…Next week I’ll do better
In total agreement but have dropped off cab lists mostly because the cellar is too cab heavy. The 2014 MG was one of the best Napa cabs I’ve ever had, and holding bottles of '14, '15 and '16 MG and Judge Family Syrah (ditto with agreement on the quality of the syrah). Cool to see him offering another and that MG has already sold out.
Anyone know how these releases typically work? My first vintage was the '18 last Aug but havent seen anything on the '19 yet. Not that I need another release right now but does he just release once he deems them ready? I don’t see any bottles on CT so I don’t think I missed anything. Anyone aware of timing? Thx
