One of America's Best Syrahs
- 94 - 96 pts Jeb Dunnuck94 - 96 pts Jeb Dunnuck
- 94 pts Wine Spectator94 pts WS
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2016 Tensley Syrah Colson Canyon Santa Barbara 750 ml
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Tensley’s Dream Year at Colson Canyon
Colson Canyon Vineyard, high up in the Santa Ynez Mountains north of Los Olivos, has been providing exceptional Syrah to Joey Tensley since 2000. This fruit has helped Tensley become the most honored Syrah maestro on the coast, with one vintage flirting with Robert Parker perfection at 99 points. But in 2016 it all came together.
Two years prior, he bought the site, and the 2016 vintage has his handprints on the grapes for the first time, from bud-break to harvest. The result produced Tensley’s most unctuous, decadent Santa Barbara Syrah yet. Robert Parker’s longtime Rhône expert, Jeb Dunnuck gushed over its “sensational purity,” concluding it is “a killer wine,” deserving of 94-96 points. At $40 per bottle, it is one of the best-priced 94- to 96-point American Syrahs on the market.
Along with the rest of California, Colson Canyon welcomed the end of a three-year drought in 2016, an early-season rain replenishment that sustained the vines throughout a cool growing season. Taking the reins in his beloved vineyard, Joey thinned the canopy, dropped crop, and carefully monitored watering. He was overjoyed at the crop set in 2016. Long before the “dream come true” 2016 vintage, long before he pulled in more 94- to 99-point scores from Robert Parker than any other American Syrah-maker, Joey Tensley was the Bakersfield farm boy who took the plunge in 2000 and in 2001 released his first Colson Canyon Syrah.
Joey and his talented winemaker wife Jennifer cobbled their resources together and launched a label that has upended the wine world. Whether you taste all of that history, all of that risk and all of that reward might depend on your proclivity to ponder such things while enjoying a truly remarkable wine.