Tasting Notes: Red Lava comes from a small 10 acre single vineyard, south facing, densely planted on a steep hillside. The result is an elegant monster, wonderful concentration with intense blackberry, black raspberry, pepper, mineral, integrated tannins with along supple delicious finish. I get loads of blackberry jam, plum, violets, coffee and chocolate flavors. 2007 as a vintage is one of California’s finest, the finest since 1994. The wine comes from the new Red Hills AVA in Lake County and is defined by its geological newness being made up of volcanic peaks (Hence the name Red Lava) which are minerally rich and moisture starved earth yields fruits that is absolute perfection for great wine, in particular great Syrah. Hands- on Bud Lawson was able to get one of the great Syrah clones from the Northern Rhone used in Cote Rotie. Yields are kept to minimum resulting in the wines rich opulent concentrated style. The wine is aged for 18 months in a combination of French, American and Hungarian oak. The result is a tremendous value for money red that rivals the finest big reds for the buck coming out of California today. Superbly rich, all velvet and cashmere and long on the finish. This is a lot of wine for the money.