Andrew Murray Enchanté 2023
£26.45
The wine
A rich, refreshing blend delivering vibrant minerality and wonderful balance, with notes of juicy melon, pear, marzipan and honey.
Roussanne and Grenache Blanc are white Rhône varieties and an unusual pairing outside France. Roussanne is the difficult one, prone to oxidation and erratic yields, but it gives a honeyed, herbal weight nothing else provides; Grenache Blanc adds freshness and a faintly bitter finish. Santa Barbara County is unusual in California: the coastal ranges run east to west rather than north to south, so the valleys funnel cold Pacific air and fog directly inland. That gives a genuinely cool growing season at a latitude that ought to be far too warm.
The producer
Andrew Murray Vineyards
View all Andrew Murray Vineyards winesAndrew Murray fell for Syrah and Viognier while travelling the Rhône Valley in the late 1980s. He abandoned palaeontology studies at UC Berkeley, took a winery internship in Australia, returned to take a degree in viticulture and oenology at UC Davis, and founded his own estate in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Santa Barbara County is unusual in California. The coastal ranges here run east to west rather than north to south, so the valleys funnel cold Pacific air and fog directly inland, and temperatures drop sharply the closer you get to the ocean. That gives a genuinely cool growing season at a latitude that ought to be far too warm, and it is why the county has become one of the best addresses in the state for Rhône varieties and Pinot Noir.
The wines are made in a northern Rhône register rather than a Californian one: Syrah with pepper and olive rather than sweet jam, Viognier with acidity intact. Roasted Slope takes its name from Côte-Rôtie, which translates as exactly that.
