2016 Kevin White Winery Syrah En Hommage

JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  4/26/2019, (See more on JamesSuckling.com...)

  (Kevin White Winery Syrah Yakima Valley En Hommage, Red, United States) Login and sign up and see review text.

• By Stephen Tanzer
  Focus on Washington: The New Normal (Nov 2018), 11/1/2018, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Kevin White Winery Syrah En Hommage Washington Red) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Dialed In, 9/5/2018

  (Kevin White Winery Syrah En Hommage) Hello friends. At what point does a rising star winemaker drop the ‘rising’ portion and just become an established superstar? For my view of Kevin White, I can pinpoint the exact moment: it was on August 9 at 11:22am, when I took my first sniff of Kevin’s 2016 Rhone blend, La Fraternite. My goodness. I mean, this guy has been knocking it out of the park for years now. Check out this string of accolades from Seattle Magazine’s annual wine awards issues: Winemaker to Watch in 2015, Best Red Blend $20-$40 in 2016, Best Rhone Blend, $25 and under in 2017, Best Emerging Winery in 2018. And that has been during the string of hot-hotter-hottest vintages (2013-2015) that didn’t perfectly suit his house style. Now, with the 2016, he has a vintage that works, he’s seven vintages into his winery, and he is just killing it. I get the sense that Kevin is really dialed in right now. He knows the style of wines he wants to make, and he has the vineyard partners to make it happen. The result, at least for this pair of ‘16s, is something really special. I should also mention: Kevin’s pricing remains ridiculous, with these wines competing with bottles at twice the tag. Kevin seems determined to offer exceptional value as he builds his brand, and I’m really pleased that our list members can continue to be the recipients of his efforts in that direction. A few logistics notes. First, we’re likely to only get one shot at these. They’re small production, and they always move fast. If possible, I’ll over-buy so that we have some availability for reorder, but I’d say the odds of that are less than 50/50. Second, reviews of these wines are always positive, but they also always come well after release, and I’m not taking any chances on waiting. Kevin made just 200 cases of this 100% Syrah, sourced from entirely Boushey and Elephant Mountain Vineyards. It too was aged in French oak for about a year, with a small proportion (less than a quarter) new wood. It clocks in at 14.1%, and while it is more of a brooder today than La Frat (as are 99% of the wines in the world), it still offers dynamic aromatics of black fruit, smoldering charcoal, and smoked sausages. The palate is outrageous, offering palate-saturating intensity and a deeply attractive mix of fruity and savory elements. Again, this is texturally gorgeous, offering such a supple glide path from attack to middle to finish. The barest hint of fine-grained tannic chew on the finish had me thinking of more robust roasts and braises here; bubby’s brisket perhaps. Again, no reviews yet, but last year’s ’15 also earned a 93pt review from Sean Sullivan in Enthusiast. To put that review into context, of Sean’s 77 reviews of 2015 Washington Syrahs, only two earned better hits (one 94pt review and one 95pt), and the other nine to earn 93pt reviews ranged in price from $40 to $85, with an average price of $56.80. All that to say: Sean doesn’t toss around 93s lightly, and basically never does so for Syrahs at this price point. Just another piece of evidence making the case that Kevin White is among the finest QPR wineries we have in Washington right now.