2006 Syrah A Shot In The Dark Sta. Rita Hills

Manfred Krankl is increasing his focus on grenache "because at its best it delivers maximum aromatic and flavor intensity with a transparency that I love." But he added the caveat that "jammy grenache just isn't that interesting to me. If it's just big, sweet fruit, then I find it really boring." Krankl's new winery, perched atop a hill in Ventura surrounded by his new estate vines (Cumulus Vineyard), should be fully operational next year. He's already working some of this estate fruit into the Sine Qua Non wines. Aside from fruit that he purchases from Bien Nacido and White Hawk vineyards, all his raw material is now estate-grown, with the majority coming from his cool-climate Eleven Confessions vineyard in the SantaRitaHills.

Manfred Krankl has been steadily increasing his reliance on grapes from his own vines in recent years and this trend will continue as the vineyard that surrounds his home high above Ventura's Lake Casitas, which he has named Cumulus, comes into maturity. He is also increasingly enamored of grenache, which he says "develops a really interesting savory character when grown in a cool spot. It keeps all that sweet red fruit but can also get a spiciness that's a lot like syrah." Speaking of the 2007 vintage, Krankl told me, "we got next to no rain, which killed us for crop level but made sure that what we got was really concentrated." Incidentally, 2006 will be the last vintage for the late-harvest Mr. K wines following the death of Krankl's partner Alois Kracher in December 2007. Krankl acknowledges that Kracher's son, Gerhard, is "enormously talented and very smart, just like his dad" but says that "Mr. K was between Alois and me, so it had to end if he couldn't be here. Maybe Gerhard and I can do something in the future but this was extremely personal."