Syrah is the grape that got Pax into the wine business and the wine for which he’s best known, but one whiff of this and you’ll immediately know this is not what you might expect. Over the past decade, Pax has been gradually taking his foot off the gas and concentrating on more elegant, fragrant versions and in his easy-drinking Cuvée, he is aiming for something more elemental and pure, like a distillation of the grape without any winemaker adornment or artifice.
He blends this Syrah, all from a single site, at the crush pad with about 3% of the white Viognier, a trick used in the Northern Rhône Valley of France to add softer, rounder skin tannins to the wine as opposed to the harsher, more obvious tannins of the Syrah. He also ferments the wine as whole grape clusters, a technique that emphasizes the zippy fruit of the wine as opposed to its inner structure. In the 2025 harvest, the resulting wine, aged only for six months in a combination of neutral containers, is like experiencing the smells of Mistral blowing through the Rhône Valley in mid-summer with zingy, snappy florals, black and blue fruits, wild herbs and a soy sauce-like savoriness.
Dark and persistent, it’s medium-weight but still light on its feet, this is a glorious drink all on its own, even with a bit of a chill on it if it’s warm outside. With burgers off the grill, it’s an ‘aha’ wine and food combo you’ll want to repeat all summer long!
Vinous, 90-92 points: The 2025 Cuvée-Syrah, tasted from tank just prior to bottling, is packed with inky dark fruit, lavender, menthol, licorice, chocolate, spice and a good deal of whole-cluster savoriness. Boisterous and juicy, the 2025 is a total delight. A whole range of floral and spice notes punctuate the finish. The 2025 was done with 100% stems and was aged mostly in neutral 500-liter barrels. It is an astonishingly good wine made in a style meant to be very friendly in terms of both approachability and price.
