2011 Alturas

California syrah aficionados no doubt know this vineyard via wines made from it by Copain over the years, and fans of that bottling should definitely check out these wines, which run along the same stylistic line. Halcon's owners Valerie and Paul Gordon told me that as cool as the 2011 growing season was for all of the North Coast, Mendocino was especially cold, particularly at the onset of flowering, "as in 2010." But the summer of 2011 was warmer, relatively speaking, than that of 2010, with no heat spikes to disturb slow, even ripening. Since the Gordons grow almost exclusively red Rhone varieties, which with the exception of grenache are thick-skinned, potential rot following the early October rains wasn't an issue, "and it's so windy up where we are (at 2500 feet elevation) that everything dries out quickly." Perhaps most important to the success of 2011 up here was that after those storms "things stayed dry and warm until the end of the month so full maturity was possible" at harvest.