2009 Syrah Turner Vineyard

"Two thousand ten was interesting all around, but in a good way, at least for me," Chad Melville told me this fall. "Cold weather came down from Canada and the season averaged almost five degrees below normal, which gave us a drawn-out season." The slow maturation and sugar build-up in the grapes made for more complexity, he thinks, and the heat spell at the end of September gave the sugars a good late boost. Melville is paying especially close attention to the tools of his craft: he told me that "when it comes to equipment it's a mistake to get hung up on cost. After you spread the cost out over the wines that you make it's really pretty minor. Imagine how good a big winery has it. Why would I skimp on barrels? What's a couple hundred extra bucks for the best barrel when I'll use it for four or five years, meaning that about 1,800 bottles are ultimately going to come out of it?" He said that as he continues to gain confidence as a winemaker he's trying to emphasize the savory side of his wines: "the earth, herbs and spices. I'm not trying to make fruit bombs."

Samsara is without question one of the hottest boutique wineries in California's Central Coast. Proprietor Chad Melville splits his time between Samsara and his family's Melville estate, an approach that seems to work. The 2010s are the product of a very cold year with heat spikes in October. Except for the Rita's Crown, the Pinots were harvested in October, but before the spikes. The Syrahs (which I will revie next year) were picked much later, into December in some cases, and benefited from the kick of heat earlier in the growing season. Overall, yields were down dramatically, but that may have turned out to be a positive, as normal yields might not have ripened under these conditions. The wines were fermented with natural yeasts, and bottled without fining or filtration. Melville used 25-100% whole clusters for most of the wines. The top selections saw a maximum of 50% new oak.

Chad Melville manages the vineyards for his family's Melville estate and makes the Samsara wines in a small rented facility in Lompoc. The wines are fermented with indigenous yeasts, aged in French oak (0$25.00% new) and bottled with no fining or filtration. The 2009 saw a fairly high percentage of whole clusters ranging from 50-100%. These are gorgeous, pure wines from an inspired, young producer whose career will be fascinating to follow. All of the Pinots were in bottle at the time of my June visit, while the Grenache and the three Syrahs I tasted were scheduled to be bottled in August.