Syrah – Chateau Julien’s Rising Star

When a friend sends you a bottle of his new wine, with a note, “Let me know what you think of it,” you get a little shiver of apprehension. Of course, when the friend is Bill Anderson, winemaker for Chateau Julien in the Carmel Valley and you have been drinking Bill’s wines for years and enjoying every one, you know the new wine, the first ever release of Syrah from Chateau Julien, will be a beauty. It was accepted so well by the consuming public that the wine was sold out in 30 days. The 1999 vintage is disappearing nearly as quickly.

The new Syrah is a far cry from Bill’s first wine, made when he was a precocious 11-year-old. Back in the days when San Francisco’s lower peninsula was more agricultural than urban, Bill’s family had a fair number of fruit trees in the backyard. One day, Bill discovered an old porcelain crock in the garage, bought some sugar and yeast at the grocery store, mashed up a lot of apricots and worked up his first batch of “wine.” “I was so thrilled when it started to ferment,” he recalls. He also recalls how it tasted – “Awful!” But the wine bug had already claimed him as its own.

After college, with a degree in psychology, he decided to follow his childhood interest in enology and enrolled at the University of California/Davis. After graduation he joined Pedrizetti Winery in Morgan Hill and, in 1982, accepted an invitation from Bob and Patty Brower to become winemaker at their brand new and beautiful Chateau Julien.

Although Chateau Julien produces in the neighborhood of 300,000 cases of wine a year, under three labels, those actually bearing the estate name are produced in extremely limited quantities of 600-1200 cases a year. Private Reserve Chardonnay and Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon have been made at Chateau Julien since its beginning. A Private Reserve Merlot was added in the mid-1990s, followed by Sangiovese. These, along with the new Syrah, are pretty easy to find at wine shops. A perfect pair of sipping wines, Johannisberg Riesling and Gewürztraminer are available only at the winery in the Carmel Valley. To learn more about Chateau Julien, check their website: www.chateaujulien.com