Andrew Murray Vineyards

Syrah as the first decision

Syrah sets the first decision for Andrew Murray, winemaker at Andrew Murray Vineyards in Los Olivos, before the cellar turns to range, texture, or release. His formal base came at University of California, Davis, and that training reads here as discipline rather than display: a measured way of letting the Santa Ynez Valley fruit keep its own register while the cellar gives it shape. Murray remains the named hand at the winery, working within an independent, family-owned house built around Rhône-style wines from estate vineyards. The center of the bench is clear. “We bottled our first Estate Syrah a few years ago and continue to explore different expressions of Syrah with some very special and limited bottlings, named for our Children.” That is not a broad portfolio statement dressed as romance. It is a maker naming the grape he returns to, then allowing different parcels and bottlings to test how much Syrah can carry without losing its line.

A Rhône cellar measured by range

The estate works across 150 acres and multiple sites, with Syrah joined by Grenache, Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Mourvedre, and Cinsault. The focus is still wine, red, white, and rosé, but the grammar is Rhône. Murray’s signature bottlings include 2022 SYRAH NOLAN VINEYARD, 2023 SYRAH ROASTED SLOPE, Seppo, Estate Syrah, and 2025 ROSE ESPÉRANCE. Those names matter because they make the program legible: vineyard, slope, estate, rosé, family reference, each one a different pressure applied to the same underlying discipline. The house describes its farming direction as sustainable, and the winemaking aim is not extraction for its own sake. Murray has put the desired shape plainly: “All of this adds up to richly structured, long-lived and highly drinkable wines.” Structure, length, and drinkability sit together here. The cellar’s work is to hold them in the same glass.

Vines, oaks, and the quiet of the tasting room

The winery sits in the Santa Ynez Valley AVA, with estate vineyards on hillside slopes and a tasting room that keeps the tempo low. The room is modern without pulling attention away from the wine, and the grounds do some of the softening: vines, tall trees, picnic areas under oaks, a quiet pace that suits a producer asking visitors to follow differences between Syrah bottlings rather than simply move through a flight. The atmosphere is relaxed and close to the land, more bench-side than ceremonial. In the glass, the place is not trying to leave Los Olivos behind. It keeps returning to the estate fruit, the Rhône varieties, and the long read of the valley.

The line to hold

The useful continuity here is Murray’s insistence on Syrah as a working language, not a single label. As new releases move through the cellar, the thread to follow remains the same: how a hillside, an estate block, or a family-named bottling changes the shape of Estate Syrah.