I have, of course, followed Syrah in Calif from the very start. That was the first Syrah in '73 by WalterShug at JosephPhelps from virused ChristanBros Syrah vnyd in StHelena that was subsequently pulled. And we all know the story of the EstrellaClone Syrah planted by GaryEberle in '74, using cuttings from a small Syrah block at UC/Davis that Gary helped Prof.Olmo prune one Spring, and then followed Olmo's admonition to "clean up the cuttings" and took back to EstrellaRiver and propagated them. And the arrival of the Syrah cuttings at TablasCreek in the '90's and then the arrival of the ENTAV Syrah clones from France later on. This is all pretty modern history.
One of the oldest Syrah plantings is on the GibsonRanch in McDowellVlly/MendoCnty. The vnyd (containing other stuff as well) was planted in 1910, some say 1894, some 1919. Back in the '80's, BillyCrawford's winemaker (GeorgeBursick) made some stunning Syrahs from those grapes. I expect, someday under Jake & Scott, we'll see some great Syrahs from GibsonRanch once again. Can hardly wait.
When you read about some of the old vnyds that Mike & Morgan harvest from, they talk a lot about the mixed blacks in those plantings. Often, they will cite a few vines of Syrah in there.
The story about Zin's origins as been well told. Yet there is little told about these very old Syrah vines and how they happened to arrive in Calif. Or from where (presumably the RhoneVlly) they came.
Bursick/OldVineSyrah
So....my question....has there been any research/investigation into these very old-vine Syrahs?? I can't find anything in my searches. Presumably UC was distributing some sort of Syrah back in the late 1800's that maybe these old vines came from. But does anybody have any information (factual, anecdotal, urban-legend, made-up, whatever) about these old Syrah vines. Curious minds want to know.
Tom