Tensley All Blocks Estate Blend 2016 | We have 150 of the 350 Cases made – get your share
This is only the second vintage of this very special wine. The Tensley All Blocks Estate Blend 2016 represents a long-time dream come true for Winemaker Joey Tensley. This wine blends Santa Barbara Syrah and Mourvedre from our Tensley Estate Vineyard as well as Grenache and Syrah from Colson Canyon Vineyard. Consisting of 85% Grenache, 14% Syrah, and 1% Mourvedre, this wine is bold and beautifully balanced. Colson Canyon creates the deep, dark berry notes, chocolate, and lush mouthfeel while the Tensley Vineyard brings in savory, earthy notes and deep, dark notes of purple plums. Showing the best each vineyard has to offer, this wine is approachable now but will also age well over the next 8 to 10 years.
94WA | Perfumed violets, cracked pepper, game, and olives on the nose. The Tensley All Blocks Estate Blend 2016 is vibrant and youthful on the palate. With savory grilled herbs in addition to smoked game, blackberries, black plum, and wild strawberry. Spicy and delicious Santa Barbara Syrah. Drink now – 2027.
94WS | The Tensley All Blocks Estate Blend 2016 is polished and well-structured. Delivering fragrant black raspberry in addition to crushed stone and garrigue aromas. Opening to a refined, layered blueberry and savory licorice flavors that linger toward harmonious tannins. Drink now through 2027.
Parker & Galloni love Joey Tensley Syrahs
Since 2007, no Syrah-maker on the coast has garnered more 94- to 99-point scores from Robert Parker and Antonio Galloni — not Colgin, Alban, Turley, or Sine Qua Non — than Joey Tensley. We just got our hands on this 2016 “All Blocks,” a red blend of 100% estate fruit, combining the best of his Tensley and Colson Canyon vineyards. Wine Spectator’s 94-point review called it “polished and well-structured” with “refined, layered blueberry and savory licorice flavors that linger towards harmonious tannins.” A 94-point wine from an American Syrah master for under-$30 — what’s easier than that?
Tensley recently bought Colson Canyon Vineyard, the source of some of his greatest single-vineyard releases of his career, and in 2015 created a new cuvee: “All Blocks” which combines all estate Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre in a brilliant Châteauneuf-Like New World Red.
Winemaker Joey Tensley | Santa Barbara Syrah
Joey Tensley is a Bakersfield farm boy with a savant-like knack for winegrowing. With his wife Lea, they bootstrapped their way to the top. The wines of his competition, the likes of Colgan and Kongsgaard, come with three-digit price tags. However, the couple keeps their pricing modest, even with their brand on fire.
We met with Joey at a private tasting a few months back. He asserted that Tensleys make the kind of wines they’d like to have on their own dinner table each night. Accordingly, he has become not only a massive hit with the wine-buying public but a critical darling. “Joey Tensley continues to make some of the most unctuous, decadent, yet balanced wines from Santa Barbara County,” declared Jeb Dunnuck. “And if you factor price, you can’t beat them.”
Explore today’s finds at Wine Access
It was love at first sight for Winemaker Joey Tensley when he originally spied the rugged Colson Canyon Vineyard back in 1997. Perched high up at an elevation of 1,400 feet, the combination of warm days and cool nights produce dense, fruit-forward wines with opulent jamminess. In 2016, Colson supplied the velvety mouthfeel and rich dark-berry profile of Santa Barbara Syrah. Tensley Vineyard delivered the Cornas-like savory earth notes.
Of the 350 cases made, we have 150 of them. Get your share while it lasts.