2022 Ex Post Facto Syrah Santa Barbara County 6pk 6x750ml

Ex Post Facto — Latin for "after the fact," a law that retroactively criminalizes an act that was legal when committed — was named by winemaker Greg Brewer in tribute to his mother, the Senior District Attorney of Ventura County. The label exists outside Brewer's usual boundaries: a space to craft Syrah and Pinot Noir with no rules but the fruit.

The 2022 comes from Perilune Vineyard, a young-vine hillside site on the north side of Highway 246 in the Sta. Rita Hills, where coastal fog and maritime wind shape every cluster. Santa Barbara Syrah at this elevation delivers the white-pepper snap and floral lift of cool-climate fruit without losing depth. Brewer fermented the whole cluster for sixty days — stems and all — then aged the wine in the oldest neutrals in the cellar. The technique is deliberate: he's after stem tannin, not oak, and the aromatic complexity that comes from ripening the rachis alongside the berry.

The wine opens with heady aromatics — dried wild herbs, lavender, bright red berries — then turns savory: smoky soy, black olives in brine, graphite. The palate is fresh and tense, balancing cheerful raspberry and pomegranate pulp against charred earth and briny olive. High-acid spine, firm tannin, and a lifted finish of wintergreen and sage.

This is Syrah for the table, not the trophy shelf. Pull the cork tonight with anything off the grill — it's built to cut through char and fat and hold the line through 2032.