Black black black as your soul, roasted steamy earth and peach-pit velouté rams grainy vegetal fruit deep into your sinuses. Always coming up in lists of the coldest SY vineyards in California, Cambria wine country is probably my FAVORITE on the Central Coast. San Simeon Creek, Derbyshire,Stolo, Riven Rock… and on and on.
Instantly rewarding in the mouth, a ridiculously sharp vein of acid gives perfect juxtaposition to a succulent black cherry marinara matchhead green peppercorn stew. Furrowingly green and bitter in finish, fruit going a direction no one would ever accuse of cloying or over-stuffed, a harsh decant opens up the peaty against the steely and the raw dry-rub against the austere. Lemonade in a pigskin sac. Fertilizer in a flowering bed. A first date with someone you’re quivering to know better. I drag all these Sonoma Coast wines down here and this beauty is literally 20 miles away.
2014 STOLO FAMILY VINEYARDS Syrah Cambria San Luis Obispo Co. 13.8
Stephen McConnell 