2018 Alban Foresythe The Mason

Moving to the 2018s, this is an incredible vintage at this address, and the wines are truly special across the board. Deep, pure cassis and assorted currant-like fruits as well as ground pepper, violets, cured meats, and spice all shine on the nose of the 2018 Mason. These carry to a medium to full-bodied Mourvèdre offering incredible tannins, flawless balance, and a refined, layered, seamless mouthfeel that keeps you coming back to the glass. There are not many finer Mourvèdres in the world. Give bottles 2-3 years and enjoy over the following 2-3 decades. It’s clear that Alban has another truly special vintage on their hands with these 2018s, and these might be the finest wines I’ve tasted from this estate. Reminding me slightly of the 2016s, these aren’t massive, over-the-top wines, and they excel every bit as much for their purity, balance, and elegance as they do for their richness and texture. The 2019s also showed well, and those will be reviewed from bottle next year. As I hope these reviews show, I don’t think anyone is doing Rhône varieties better.

The 2018 The Mason might be the finest young vintage of this cuvée I’ve tasted. Just about off the charts in every category, power, purity, elegance, and balance, it’s an incredible blend of Mourvèdre and Syrah that has gorgeous cassis and blue fruits as well as primordial violet, spice, and ground pepper. If given the opportunity, buy it! It’s always incredibly educational tasting through recent vintages with the Alban family, as well as one of the highlights of my year. John brings an incredible amount of knowledge and experience to the table. As with Guigal in the Northern Rhône, he favors a long, four-year élevage for his wines, and it’s such a treat to look at multiple vintages at the same time. Having said that, this estate is unique in its location, and while it does seem to track the overall vintage style of the Central Coast, that’s not always the case. Looking at the wines reviewed here, the 2017s were just bottled at the time of my visit, and I was able to taste them as pre-bottling samples at the estate and then later via shipped finished bottles in Colorado. While 2017 can be a challenging vintage throughout California due to heat, this estate handled the vintage beautifully, and the wines are rich, textured, and exotic. They’re already expressive and drinking nicely yet will benefit from just 2-4 years of bottle age to integrate some structure. They’ll be long lived and have broad drink windows. The 2018s come from a drought year, and the wines are concentrated, rich, and blockbuster styled, yet there’s a cooler, pure, fresh vibe in the aromatics, and I suspect these will need slightly more time in bottle. I was only able to taste a few 2019s and 2020s, so the majority of those reviews will wait until next year. As I’ve lamented in the past, it’s always been a mystery to me why no one else in the Edna Valley comes anywhere close to the quality that is routinely achieved by Alban.