Bien Nacido Estate Syrah 2022

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Mattinson review of Bien Nacido Estate Syrah 2022.

Bien Nacido Estate Syrah 2022
13.5% alcohol, cork, Santa Maria Valley USA.

All the Bien Nacido ‘estate’ wines are good but it’s this syrah that really proves how special they are. This is a mid-weight wine with cherry plum (but more cherry than plum) flavours, black pepper, sweet spice notes and an ultra fine grain to the tannin. It might not sound like much but it’s an exquisite Syrah, not at all overdone, insistent in an understated way, and drenched in spice. Crushed rock notes add a certain special something, while cedarwood oak adds polish. If spice-driven syrah is your thing, this is a genuinely beautiful example. 96 points.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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