Rating: 5
Infinitely complex nose that began with notes of blackberry, coconut, green olives, and bacon, moving with time towards blueberry liqueur. Those aromas were expressed gorgeously in the mouth, with flavors of smoked ham hock, blueberry, and cabbage on the front and mid-palate, and a clean, herb-and-apple-skin finish. This wine was well-structured, with fresh, minty acidity and fine-grained tannins. Absolutely dazzling.
This is pure Syrah from Spofford Station vineyard, which is located right on that sweet spot in the Walla Walla Valley near the border with Oregon. That area (not too far away from Cayuse) seems to be nirvana for Rhone varietals in Washington.
I wish I could tell you where to find the wine, but production was very small (2004 was the freeze year in Washington), and Paul Gregutt scored this wine 95 points, so I’m pretty sure it’s completely sold out. I’m trying to figure out what happened to JLC. Their website is down, and CellarTracker doesn’t seem to show any recent releases. Lynne Chamberlain is the winemaker and owner of Spofford Station vineyards, and she was recently elected to the board of The Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers, so she is clearly still active. If any reader has info, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.
And everyone should keep an eye out for new JLC releases, because this bottle was outrageous.
This site is dedicated (mostly) to the wines of Washington state. Hi. I'm Paul Zitarelli. That's me in the picture. I'm the one that's neither female (my wife Kelli) nor feline (our cat Smoke Bomb)... 
I am a distributor in Eastern Washington that deals with small production wineries like JLC and Spofford. As of July 1st we will have Lynne’s wines in Tri Cities – Yakima – Ellensburg and Spokane
Kat Dykes Royal Oak Distributing