2016 Villa Creek Cellars Cherry Newton Syrah Ballard Canyon Santa Ynez Valley 750 ml

When we offered the ‘15 Villa Creek Cherry Newton Syrah a few months ago, it quickly became one of the most popular wines of the year. A quick sell-out, we were fielding scores of requests for more bottles with good reason—it was a dynamite red from a pair of Central Coast stars at a massive discount, making it a top buy.

Today, we’re one-upping ourselves—we’ve got the next vintage in hand at an even lower price, just $20 per bottle. This collaboration between star vineyardist Jeff Newton and winemaker Cris Cherry of Villa Creek is a stunning bottle of Syrah, with a rich, textured personality—and a winery price of $45, meaning you’re saving $25 per bottle. No, that’s not a misprint. Based on the response to our last offering and the quality of this bad boy, cases, plural, are what you want.

A few years in the cellar have done wonders for this wine, which comes across as Sine Qua Non-inspired—something that makes sense given that the legendary estate sourced a lot of their Syrah from Ballard Canyon in its first decade. 

Dark purple with ruby hints, you can tell this is going to be a rich, textured bottling just from its appearance. The nose doesn’t disappoint, with a big wave of baked plums, ripe black cherries, and violets, accented by a hint of bacon-inflected spice. Once you take a sip, the wine is rich and lush, with wave after wave of flavor and a palate-coating texture. Cherry-vanilla cream, Damson plum, and a mélange of spices—clove, allspice, and long-pepper—take turns appearing before the long, juicy finish leaves you wanting another sip.

It’d be a pretty good value at its list price of $45, and the story of how we ended up here is pure serendipity.

“Stolpman, Jonata, Beckmen, Kimsey, Rusack...” Victor the bartender at Buellton’s famed Hitching Post II restaurant had asked us to name our favorite Ballard Canyon estates, so we ran down the list—until he cut us off. 

“All Jeff Newton wines,” he said matter-of-factly, as he polished a glass. “You guys must know Cherry Newton, then.” We confessed that we didn’t, and before we could ask Victor to enlighten us, he’d hopped on the bar’s landline. Within minutes we had a next-day appointment with Jeff Newton, the legendary Central Coast vineyard manager who, it turns out, is the underground secret sauce behind some of our favorite grapes.

When we visited Jeff at Rancho Boa Vista, we got the whole story of how he became one of the under-the-radar stars of Santa Barbara County wine. A local grape supplier to the Central Coast stars we’d rattled off to Victor at the Hitching Post, Jeff's been farming Ballard Canyon’s limestone soils since 1988, and knows them as well as anyone. 

When he uncovered an especially perfect plot of Syrah vines in this hidden pocket of Ballard Canyon, he decided he wanted it all to himself. He purchased the vines outright, and hired the best winemaker he knew—Cris Cherry of Paso Robles star Villa Creek—to help him make his very first wine. Cherry Newton was born.

The 2016 is only the pair's third vintage, and without a big marketing budget, it stayed in their cellar, aging patiently until we came calling. Because of our success with the ‘15, we’re able to offer this release at even more stunning pricing. $20 per bottle on cases of a tiny-production first-class Santa Barbara red—it doesn’t get much better than that.