Gonna sound like a broken record but…

Once a classic, ALWAYS a classic. Beringer. Ridge. Hanzell. Swan. Legends in wine.

You can almost always BET on them to deliver. When we rarely get these names in front of you at an astonishing price, but when we do, they set new sellout records.

Today is one of them.

A micro-production single vineyard Russian River Valley Syrah by Joseph Swan. Few people even know it exists outside the Swan mailing list. We’ve been consistently knocking on their door, shaking their vines for low-hanging deals to no avail. Until this one dropped and knocked our socks off.

At this price it’s a you snooze you lose. Just like how we missed out on the Pinot version of this and had to witness a competitor “blow it out’” at 45 bucks.

Sōlās is that super special vineyard smack in the tenderloin of Russian River that no one has heard of. It’s literally across the street from Joseph Swan and has been the source for numerous great hits by the likes of Arnot Roberts, Bedrock, Pax, and Donelan. It’s also known as the Walker Vine Hill Vineyard, while owners Paul and Lynn O’Neill like to call their century-old site “Sōlās” - Gaelic for comfort.

This particular release has no critical acclaim, while anything else Sōlās effortlessly and consistently hits 90+ points. Arnot Roberts for instance is over the moon about this great site “Solas occupies a magic location for growing Syrah with its well-drained, sandy Goldridge soils and abundant sunlight during the growing season. The warmest of our Syrah sites, Solas yields thick-skinned fruit that is intensely dark and concentrated with a blueish purple hue. The juice from this gorgeous fruit stains everything it comes in contact with in the cellar… we are fortunate to work with such pristine fruit, year in and year out.”

So are we! This is a wow Syrah, hauntingly Russian River, with a sprinkling of Old-World fairy dust one would expect from an institutional outfit like Swan. The alluring color is a translucent garnet on the rim with gradual gradation to a luminescent bright ruby towards the heart of it. The nose is redolent in just-picked red and black wild berries, along with a streak of freshly cracked Tellicherry pepper, violets and a luxury leather nuance. Cherries, plums, and pomegranate define the juicy, while silky palate. Builds up to a complex and long finish, reminiscent of – dare we say – a Côte-Rôtie from a warm vintage.

Joseph Swan sits alongside visionaries like Rochioli, Dehlinger, Williams Selyem. The man even has a CLONE in his namesake! Joe started his journey alongside André Tchelistcheff, the founding father of fine California wine. He passed the baton to son-in-law Rod Berglund, who stuck with the course: growing, and sourcing the absolute best fruit possible, allowing nature to shine through in the smallest of lots.

A Los Angeles Times memorial puts it best “Swan never wanted to make more than 2,000 cases a year, even though demand rose around the country. ‘He never wanted to grow too big,’ said Berglund, ‘and we used to fight about the fact he had no forklift.’ Berglund, who was a winemaker for La Crema Viñera winery from 1979 through 1984, said the lack of a forklift meant that some tasks, such as moving barrels of wine, became burdensome and time-consuming. ‘But Joe always said that if he got a forklift, that would mean he’d gotten too big.’ To this day, the winery has no forklift.”

Just 4 barrels made of this one.

This is our second ever Swan offering, and we all know what happened with the first one, so we strongly advise do not delay filling your carts and lockers with all that you can.