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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 91.9 pts. and median of 92 pts. in 137 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by Amerique on 12/17/2022 & rated 95 points: Blackberry fruit had faded compared to tannins with pencil lead flavors but surprisingly good wine (565 views) | | | Tasted by Bob & Sue Atlanta on 2/3/2022 & rated 94 points: Outstanding upon opening. This still has many years of life left in it. (1130 views) | | | Tasted by yaCellar on 8/26/2021 & rated 93 points: Rich and decadent in the old Pax style. Age has not slowed this party guy down. Nose shows maraschino liqueur and sweet Thai basil. Palette shows blackberry preserves, sweet herbs, and black currant. Round and long mouthfeel. Velvety tannins and long finish. (1324 views) | | | Tasted by BerkeleyBoy on 3/28/2021 & rated 94 points: Excellent after a 1-hr. slow ox. (1563 views) | | | Tasted by brettay on 1/26/2021 & rated 92 points: Great balance between the dark black cherry fruit and liquid stones. Such fragrance to the mineralogy which is beautifully pure and expressive. All of this is presented on the base of classic Syrah roasted meats. Stil has plenty of life and tannin left. (1730 views) | | | Tasted by Cailles on 8/6/2020 & rated 94 points: This wine drinks beautifully today with a good intensity, a broad aromatic spectrum and good precision. While it‘s in its prime drinking window I don‘t think that it is even close to declining and it might even further improve with more teritary aromatics. While certainly ripe, this is still on the elegant side and still wise not much different from a great Cote Rotie.
TN: A wide array of dark fruits, green bell pepper, dark spices, vegetale aromas, tobacco on the nose and palate. Ripe but not too ripe, intense, well delineated and embedded in a very impressive structural frame marked by good freshness, silky tannins, a very good creamy yet fresh texture. Good length too.
Decanting: Not decanted. Good from the go, no decant needed other than to remove the sediment. (2259 views) | | | Tasted by rpenn77 on 5/3/2020 & rated 88 points: Rich dark fruit with a touch too much alcohol on the finish. (1330 views) | | | Tasted by TonyH on 9/8/2019 & rated 92 points: This is how I like my slightly too old Pax. Rich full and complex. (1397 views) | | | Tasted by sayward on 8/20/2018 & rated 92 points: Really still doing well. Fruit was still there. Wood a little mellowed. Went really well with steak. (1526 views) | | | Tasted by mac-eye on 8/18/2018 & rated 94 points: Still going strong. Very nice.
Intense deep dark fruit, very well balanced. Complex flavors. Goes with a wide variety of foods and very nice on its own. Would love to have more.
Lots of fine sediment. Required careful decanting - worth doing. (1300 views) | | | Tasted by sayward on 2/24/2018 & rated 92 points: Didn't use much of a decant, but the fruit and structure of this wine was impressive. Much better than I was expecting given recent notes of have read on other Pax wines of this age. This was right up my alley as these wines are big and I enjoy them more with a little less "volume on the speakers". (1631 views) | | | Tasted by J @ y H @ c k on 9/21/2017: Date approximate. Early predictions of its demise were greatly exaggerated. Still going strong and youthful. (1716 views) | | | Tasted by alpha_ori on 8/18/2017 & rated 92 points: My last bottle, and in fact one of my last pre-schism Pax wines. Boysenberry, tar, and earth, with acid providing the structure. Drinking well, and I'm confident drinking it now; while I think it will hold awhile, I think it's probably as good now as it will ever be. Delicious! (1705 views) | | | Tasted by kkleg on 7/21/2017 & rated 94 points: Dark and brooding, with quite a bit of sediment. I suggest decanting to remove the sediment, even though we didn't.
Ultra ripe blueberry and bacon fat on the nose, with beautiful funky earth notes. Similar flavors on the palate, with a really long, lingering finish.
Fantastic now and probably at peak, but will keep for 5+ years at least. (1580 views) | | | Tasted by ews3 on 6/7/2017 & rated 93 points: really big and bruising, but impressive complexity. can't believe this is over a decade old! nice herbal notes. long finish shows a touch of heat. (1791 views) | | | Tasted by WineArchitect on 3/17/2017: Aromatics and flavirs of boysenberry, hints of menthol, lavender with a light tar and smoke. This wine is aging gracefully and should be enjoyed while the fruit is alive. EG #WineArchitect (1575 views) | | | Tasted by wildedge on 8/6/2016 & rated 92 points: Intense and complex full bodied wine. Very tasty and at 10 years it is feeling close to its peak but could have more to go. Deep dark fruits and hints of tobacco with earthy undertones make this a very nice bottle. (2227 views) | | | Tasted by alpha_ori on 6/11/2016 & rated 92 points: This bottle is less aromatic and more high-toned than others I've had. Still quite enjoyable. (1867 views) | | | Tasted by pjhr on 5/30/2016 & rated 93 points: Delicious boysenberry, mineral, and tobacco on the nose and palate within a firm structure and tasty tannins. (1740 views) | | | Tasted by mxpbuy on 3/18/2016 & rated 91 points: FROM MAGNUM: A tasty Syrah with modest heat and loads of depth. Black and blue fruits, some red fruits lurking underneath. Smooth but still some thick tannins. (1756 views) | | | Tasted by sayward on 2/23/2016 & rated 93 points: Drank blind and thought it was the best wine of the night. Decanted for 4 hours. Really drinking well now. I am looking forward to the next bottle. Same characteristics as my previous note. (1780 views) | | | Tasted by leadpencil on 9/7/2015 & rated 93 points: Full bodied. Blackberry syrup. Hints of iron. (1686 views) | | | Tasted by Loren Sonkin on 7/4/2015 & rated 93 points: Dinner with Friends (Edwin's/Our Backyard by the Fire): Pop and pour, this is still young and needs time/air. It took at least an hour to really open but at the two hour mark, it was great. Very much a cooler climate Syrah in style. The nose has boysenberries, black olives and some bacon fat. Sinewy and austere but on a large frame. Air helped it fill out a bit, but never flamboyant or large. Nice acidity. Show complexity as it unwinds in the glass. Most of the table really found this wine way too much work though and went on to other wines. That ended up being good as when the other bottles were drained, I could go back to this after it had a lot of air. (2202 views) | | | Tasted by MLD70 on 4/17/2015: Decanted 2:15, then rebottled, transported to tasting site, and uncorked for another hour. wow, still very tight at the onset but opened nicely (earth, dark fruit, herbs) by the time we were all losing our palates with dinner. no rush here. (1840 views) | | | Tasted by 560 B&W on 2/20/2015 & rated 91 points: Giant. PnP. Tannins still big, but manageable. Many years ahead. 15.3% (1924 views) | | | Only displaying the 25 most recent notes - click to see all notes for this wine... |
| Pax Producer website
The goal of our winemaking is to discover distinct California wines that are that way because of a unique terroir, or a unique interaction of vine and environment. Therefore with respect to winemaking we do everything we can to do very little. However, while it is true that great wine is made in the vineyard, we know that we can make decisions that have impacts on the critical characters of a wine. The first step of good winemaking is to be very involved in the vineyards, afterward taking inspiration from the Rhone Valley in France, we’ve discovered a few critical factors to why our wines taste the way they taste: harvest timing, stem inclusion, native fermentations, judicious oak regimes, and patience [...] our goal is to make great wine and nothing else.
Each bottle matches the soil color of the specific vineyard with the color of the label (and, prior to 2014, with the cork wax). For instance, the white, chalky, limestone soils of the James Berry Vineyard merit a white Pax label, etc.Syrah Varietal article (Wikipedia) | (Wines Northwest)
Note that some producers in the Northern Rhone distinguish between simply Syrah and "Serine", the latter described as ‘an ancient clone of Syrah, the berries of which are more oval-shaped and less deeply pigmented than Syrah’ by producer Tardieu-Laurent. USAAmerican wine has been produced since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in New Mexico in 1628. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84% of all U.S. wine. The continent of North America is home to several native species of grape, including Vitis labrusca, Vitis riparia, Vitis rotundifolia, and Vitis vulpina, but the wine-making industry is based almost entirely on the cultivation of the European Vitis vinifera, which was introduced by European settlers. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France.California2021 vintage: "Unlike almost all other areas of the state, the Russian River Valley had higher than normal crops in 2021, which has made for a wine of greater generosity and fruit forwardness than some of its stablemates." - Morgan Twain-Peterson Sonoma CountyMendocino CountySonoma Coast * Sonoma Coast AVA (Wikipedia)
* Sonoma Coast AVA (Wine Institue) |
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