In our ongoing effort to recruit new sommelier voices for our Daily Offers, we’re excited to welcome Tonya Pitts to our growing team of contributors. Tonya is the Wine Director of San Francisco’s One Market restaurant and a sought-after wine educator and speaker. We started her out with a wine from nearby Sonoma, and she’s got lots to say about it. Keep an eye out for her byline in the future! — Ian Cauble, Founder & Master Sommelier
My love for Syrah grown all over the world is vast. I discovered this wild, fantastic creature as grown in France and Australia. The first smells and sips transported me to locations far, far away from St. Louis, where I took my first restaurant job (and those fateful sips of the world’s great wines). The Australian examples from the Barossa and Coonawarra were early favorites: They spoke of stressed vines, intense sunlight, and rocky soils, which created wines with concentrated blue-black fruit, dried wild herbs, leather, and lots of texture. Then, like so many of my fellow sommeliers, I fell head-over-heels for the tension, perfume, and savor of Syrah from France’s Northern Rhône Valley—the grape’s spiritual home and the number-one destination for Syrah-loving pilgrims the world over. Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie…these wines were darkly fruited, meaty, gamey, and floral all at the same time. And all along, of course, there were the Californian renditions, crafted by the early “Rhône Rangers” and their disciples, almost hiding in plain sight—although, since I first landed in San Francisco in the early ’90s, I’ve been blessed with world-class Syrahs grown right in my backyard, like Donelan’s “Kobler Family Vineyard” Syrah. My favorite California Syrahs usually land at a midpoint between the two poles I mentioned above—voluptuous Australia and nervier, spicier Rhône—but I’d label Donelan’s 2016 as decisively leaning in the Rhône direction. An “Old World” sensibility defines the entire Donelan Family lineup, but their calling card is Syrah, grown in cool-climate vineyards and fermented using some whole grape clusters. Alcohol and extraction levels are modest, but flavor and character are off the charts. We’ve known for a while now what California can do with this variety, but this one sure puts an exclamation point on it—I couldn’t pick a better wine to present to the SommSelect faithful.