If you are visiting us for the first time, Welcome! The Wine Spies feature one exceptional wine each day – and we only bring you wines that we ourselves seek out and love. Always, the wines are great. Sometimes even better than that, as is the case with today’s wine from Skyhawk Cellars.

Mission Codename: Off the pedestal and into your glass

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Locate a superior Napa Valley Syrah – and persuade the winery to give our Operatives a price of less than $20

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: Skyhawk Cellars

Wine Subject: 2005 Napa Valley Syrah

Winemaker: Norman Alumbaugh

Backgrounder: Wine Spies Operatives have been asking us to sleuth out incredible wines for under $20. Today, Agent Red scours the Napa Valley – and returns with an amazing Syrah from Skyhawk Cellars. Read Agent Red’s tasting notes and mission report below to learn why you need to experience this wine

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – A beautiful and darkly concentrated burgundy-purple color with a deep heart, deep color right out to the edges, and super tightly-spaced legs that creep slowly down the glass

Smell – Dark and fruit-filled with deep aromatic smoky black plum, black fig, cherry, truffle, smoke, oak, cedar

Feel – Cool and light, fast across the top of the tongue and then quickly mouth-coating, smooth and with medium soft tannins

Taste – Big jammy layers of delicious fruit of blackberry, sweet cherry and smoked blueberry with musk, sweetwood, cigar box, earth and supple leather

Finish -High and bright with a big fruity sweetness that’s followed quickly by a slight tart dryness as the flavors linger on forever

Conclusion – A surprise hit around here, this wine pleases on SO many levels. Its a phenomenal wine that is surprisingly great given its low price. This wine from a bigger boutique producer could easily cost $35 or more. Why is the price so low? We can’t tell you why this particular wine is priced so low but often we find that smaller producers keep prices low as a way to attract buyers. Whatever the reason for the low price of today’s wine, we say its a stupendous value and great wine!

Mission Report:

On today’s mission I relied heavily on our newest asset, Codename: Mr. Brix, a honcho at Napa Valley wine destination, A Dozen Vintners. This wonderful venue showcases some of Napa Valley’s most delightful treasures and when I asked Mr. Brix to sleuth me out a fantastic Syrah syrah for less than $20, he reached for today’s Skyhawk Cellars Napa Valley Syrah (Avg. Retail price, $25.00).

Mr. Brix called this wine his ‘go-to budget syrah’, which left me feeling trepidacious. That is, until we popped open a bottle and the purple-love began to flow.

This wine actually astounded me. No kidding. If you ask me, this wine is way under-priced. Just don’t tell the winery that, or we may cause prices to raise.

Mr. Brix told me yesterday that this wine was a hot-seller at the local Mustard Festival, selling out each day. Because of its success at Mustard Fest (sorry that we missed that!) Mr. Brix was only able to secure a modest quantity for our Operatives today – so get busy – and place your orders… before Central Command runs out!

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The location of the VINEYARD can be seen in this satellite photo.