Tours les Jours Syrah is an outstanding value wine
Tous les Jours Syrah from Andrew Murray
Kl Wines $12.99, The Wine Stop $12.99
A year ago I raved about the 2012 Andrew Murray Tous Les Jour Syrah. With great anticipation, I opened the 2013 vintage hoping it would be as good. Surprise! It’s even better. Great nose, especially pepper. This wine is lovely in the mouth, with lots of layers and a great finish. For $12.99, this wine is a huge value. An easy 91 points for me and I am headed back to buy more. This wine is definitely “Case Worthy.”
On our trips to the Santa Barbara wine region, we always try and stop in at either the Andrew Murray tasting room in Los Olivos or the Andrew Murray winery on Foxen Canyon Road. We were lucky enough to meet and interview Andrew Murray in 2013. I sent Andrew Murray an email asking him how he was able to make such a fantastic tasting wine at a bargain price point. Here is what he had to say.
Andrew Murray and his Syrah
“The Tous les Jours is a very special idea to me. The wine is built around a concept, rather than trying to craft some kind of unique singularity. With the TLJ, we are blending cool and warm climates, early pick and later, riper picks in order to craft a delicious, honest, and authentic bottle of Syrah. Some more affordable wines are “dumbed down” by the winery…making overly rich or fruity or oaky wines…so that they are more “obvious.” The TLJ certainly has its share of fruit…but it is balanced by the natural savory qualities of Syrah…pepper, sage, crispy bacon, olive tapenade, etc…With each vintage, we are going for incremental improvements, though the vineyard sources hardly vary. The Syrah is coming from great vineyards, from a great appellation for Syrah…the Santa Ynez Valley. We feel truly blessed to literally be growing and crafting wine right in the middle of the SYV. So, yes, a lot of care and attention to detail go into making this wine not only affordable, but also delicious and wonderfully drinkable…Thus the Tous les Jours moniker. I am by no means getting rich with this wine, but it is emails like yours that are priceless. We are very proud of this wine. So, when folks ask me how we make such an affordable wine so good, I usually reply with the question…why aren’t more small producers like myself charging less for their wines??? Having said all that, 2013 was a very nice vintage for Syrah and we only work with very high end growers, so some really great fruit was delivered to me. We negotiate a more affordable price and we pass those savings on, and make lots of the wine. We produced about 9,500 cases of the 2013 vintage. It is selling like crazy. For example, we have shipped about 1,000 cases so far this month. The wine is more than ½ sold out, ahead of schedule unfortunately. We hope that each vintage is just a tiny bit better, but we realize that we can never transcend the vintage. ”
As Andrew mentioned, the Tous les Jours Syrah 2013 is going fast. The Wine Enthusiast rated it at 93 Points, so that always helps with sales. Last year the 2012 Vintage was in Costco stores but, at my local Costco as of January 26, no sign of the Tous les Jours 2013. Maybe it will be there soon but I believe the price will be the same as last year, $12.99. Meanwhile, it looks like K&L Wines has a decent inventory as of this post.
Did you miss?
Speak Your Mind