2016 Tensley All Blocks Estate Blend Santa Barbara County 750 ml

Santa Barbara’s Master of Balance

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.

Joey — a Bakersfield farm boy with a savant-like knack for winegrowing — and his wife, Lea, have bootstrapped their way to the top. While the wines of his competition, the likes of Colgan and Kongsgaard, come with three-digit price tags, the couple keeps their pricing modest, even with their brand on fire. As Joey told us at a private tasting a few months back, the 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.”

It was love at first sight for Joey 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 there produces dense, fruit-forward wines with opulent jamminess. In 2016, Colson supplied the velvety mouthfeel and rich dark-berry profile, and Tensley Vineyard the Cornas-like savory earth notes.

Of the 350 cases made, we have 150 of them. Get your share while it lasts.

Jonathan Cristaldi
Editor-in-Chief, Wine Access