Hors Categorie 2020

Hors Categorie 2020

Hors Categorie
$320.00

Grape: Syrah
Vintage: 2020
Type: Red

This small-production red wine comes from a single steep vineyard in the Walla Walla Valley, managed under strict biodynamic viticulture protocols. Winemaker Christophe Baron utilizes manual labor to cultivate old Syrah vines rooted in deep beds of broken basalt stones. The hand-harvested fruit undergoes a spontaneous native fermentation using vineyard-born wild yeasts in neutral open-top wood vats. The wine matures for several months in seasoned French oak casks to allow the structural components to settle naturally.

It pours a dark ruby color with purple edges, opening with complex aromas of wild blackberry, dark plum, woodsmoke, and tar. A medium-to-full-bodied frame pairs concentrated fruit flavors with a firm, silky tannin backbone. Savory layers of cracked black pepper and crushed basalt rocks develop nicely as the fluid mouthfeel expands. A clean thread of high-altitude acidity runs through the center, keeping the profile fresh. It concludes completely dry, leaving a long mineral trail.

Hors Categorie is Christophe Baron's most extreme Walla Walla project, a tiny Syrah vineyard planted on a steep basalt slope above the North Fork of the Walla Walla River. Baron, already famous for Cayuse, saw the site in 2005 and recognized something that reminded him of Hermitage: a raw, forbidding hillside where vines would have to struggle for everything. Planted in 2011, the vineyard is farmed biodynamically and worked almost entirely by hand because of its severe grade. The wines are powerful but lifted, built from fractured basalt, mountain exposure and the sense that the site itself is barely willing to be tamed.