The 2017 Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard opens slowly to cassis and crushed black cherries with pure touches of violet and aniseed. The medium-bodied palate offers open-knit flavors in a firm, grainy, fresh frame, and it finishes very long and layered. 191 cases produced.

Medium ruby, the 2016 Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard opens with notes of scorched earth and tar, slowly giving up blackberries, prosciutto, olive, peppery touches and fried herbs. The medium-bodied palate is silky and intense with fresh fruits and loads of savory accents, tucked into a chewy frame and finishing long with great freshness. 312 cases produced.

The 2014 Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard is youthfully promising, wafting from the glass with a youthfully reserved bouquet of dark berries, grilled meat, tapenade and cracked pepper. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, with excellent concentration and a lovely core of crunchy fruit, but framed by fine-grained, polished tannins that lend this wine a certain elegance. It's still very primary, so I'd expect this to be long lived.

Young and unevolved, with beautiful creme de cassis, crushed-rock minerality, black pepper, violet and graphite, the 2012 Syrah Bien Nacido is reminiscent of a solid Hermitage from the fame Le Meal lieu-dit in the Northern Rhone. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully proportioned and seamless, with a layered, silky texture and building tannin on the finish, it could use a tad more mid-palate concentration, yet it's still a brilliant Syrah that does everything right. Drink it anytime over the coming 10-15 years.

The 2011 Syrah Bien Nacido is a classic Syrah from this brilliant site located just to the east of Santa Maria. Masculine in style, with ample pepper, smoked earth, crushed rock and violet-tinged dark fruits, this beauty flows onto the palate with medium-bodied richness, a firm, tight feel and ripe tannin. Give it a year in the cellar and drink it through 2021. This was a mammoth tasting with winemaker Adam Tolmach and assistant Fabien Castel. While I had a number of these shipped to my office in Colorado (where I was able to follow the wines for multiple days), there were still upward of 30 bottles to taste through when I showed up at the estate. Adam continues to pull in his harvest dates, and in a number of cases, has released two cuvees from each vineyard, one harvested early (the Special Bottling) and one harvested later, which is still on the early edge. I have mixed feelings about the new style here, and while these early pick dates give his wines beautiful tension, acidity and energy, it comes at the expense of texture and richness, and the wines have a sappy, resinous, if not green, character that won’t be for everyone. Nevertheless, there are certainly some outstanding wines here. Tel. (805) 649-1674; www.ojaivineyard.com