Treve Ring: 2018 Le Grand Pin Syrah

From the home LVP site on the Black Sage Bench, and its sand over clay base, this is a structural, masculine and savoury expression of Syrah. Based around a beautiful core of violet, dense blueberry and cassis, but with syrah’s meaty reductive face evident through. This was somewhat of an experiment, with the blend made up of two neighbouring blocks of 7 rows each, both clone 877, but utilizing two different canopy management techniques (one with early deleafing before flowering). The result of the latter was a lighter, smaller cluster, with thicker grape skins, adding an extra dimension of concentration to the whole. Quite a structural, age worthy wine. This is one of three small lot (50 case) single vineyard syrahs released by the winery from 2018, all raised in neutral barrel for 18 months.