Rasa Vineyards

The 2009 Occam’s Razor is a single vineyard Syrah. The fruit is from Block 10 in one of the best vineyards in Walla Walla – the Seven Hills Vineyard.

Occam’s Razor (named after a 14th century Francisan friar and logician) basically states that given all the things are equal, the simplest answer is usually the best answer. In science, Occam’s Razor is used as a heuristic process to exclude extraneous or unprovable (or metaphysical) concepts in a proof – thus making the proof as simple as possible.

As people trained in science and mathematics, we use Occam’s Razor as one of the many guiding principles in our lives.

Winemaker Notes

This wine exhibits characteristics of all Rasa wines: beautiful structure, complexity, and length. The intense bouquet offers scorched earth, mineral, blueberry, black raspberry, grilled meats, and a hint of vanilla, lavender and violet. Full-bodied, intense, and complex on the palate, the decadent texture and cashmere-like tannins frame a beautiful array of flavors: black raspberry, blueberry, truffle, scorched earth, clove, grilled meat, coffee, and hints of wild mint. The resonant, silky finish lingers for well over a minute. Properly cellared this wine will hit maturity in 7-8 years and will easily hold for another 10 years after that.

Technical details

The wine had a pre-fermentation maceration of 152 hours and a post-fermentation maceration of 52 hours. 50% Native fermentation. The wine was punched down by hand 3 times each day during macerations and fermentation. All individual wine components, including free run and press fractions, were kept separate until final blending. The oak profile is 20% new French oak (predominantly from Troncais and Alliers) and 80% neutral French oak. The wine achieved its sparkly brilliance from 4 judicious rackings, no fining agents were employed. The wine was very lightly filtered to capture any remaining lees. The alcohol is 15.2%, pH is 3.73, and the titratable acidity is 5.8 g/L. Harvest date: September 19, 2009.

Rand Sealey – Review of WA Wines

This displays a deep purplish color and an intense nose of blackberry, blueberry and plum, with scents of lavender, violets and a hint of mint. The flavors are thickly saturated and structured, intermixed with licorice, chocolate, French roast, and silty loess minerals. The concentration continues on the back with squeezed berries and mocha on the chewy tannin finish. 19+/20 points.