2021 Stolo Family Vineyards Syrah Creekside Estate San Luis Obispo Coast 750 ml

Rajat Parr has tasted and sold more truly great wines than any American winemaker working today.

He first conveyed his incredible knowledge and palate for Burgundy into phenomenal Pinot Noir successes: Domaine de la Côte in the Santa Rita Hills and Evening Land in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. And you can tell why he became an owner and winemaker at Stolo Family Vineyards. 

Just three miles from the ocean, this land of tall trees and ocean breezes in western San Luis Obispo County is perfect for Syrah. The grape thrives in this extreme, foggy climate—just as it does on the cold, Mistral-blasted slopes of the Northern Rhône. 

Parr could see that this was a place to make a statement. He accepted the challenge, and he NAILED it with his 2020—taking the even trickier step of vinifying this Syrah with 100% whole clusters, a hallmark of the greatest wines of the Northern Rhône. Par knows that when you get whole-cluster right—with ripe stems—you get spicy, age-worthy sublimity.

In addition to a barn and farmhouse that date back to the late 1800s, Stolo boasts a nine-acre vineyard, some of which was planted to Alban-clone Syrah in 2008. Stolo dry-farms their vines, which is easy to do thanks to the presence of a shallow aquifer. Combine that with windy, foggy conditions, and you have an enviable location for growing intense Syrah. 

Raj Parr spent his childhood in Calcutta, India. After learning alongside legendary sommelier Larry Stone, he made his name as Michael Mina’s somm-to-the-stars, then as the winemaker at the perennially high-scoring Sandhi estate. Now he’s a legitimate winemaking star, as his 2020 Stolo Creekside Estate Syrah shows.