The following guest post is by my friend Jay Kell, of Verge Wines.

Being in the wine business is quite a blessing. Despite the economy being on shaky ground, nervous distributors, overwhelmed sommeliers, my partner/winemaker Mike Brunson and I can still walk outside among the vines, breathe the fresh air, and really get back to what life is all about. Cooking dinner for the family, playing music on Monday nights, and drinking a glass of Syrah or two (or three).

When we started VERGE Wine Cellars in 2006, we set about to do something more than just make wine. We set about to make interesting wine. And that’s something that not all wineries are concerned about. The top 30 wine producers in the world produce over 90 percent of the wine you drink. That doesn’t leave much bandwith for producers who make less than 1000 cases like us, let alone one that specializes in an oft overlooked varietal.

We specialize in Syrah because Mike’s been making it for almost 20 years and if we had to choose one thing to be great at, it would be Syrah. This particular varietal can use some love too. Think about all the Cabernets out there, all the Pinot Noir producers cropping up since Sideways.

Where’s the same dedication, the same passion with Syrah?

Syrah needs a voice. It’s a new varietal in CA relatively speaking. It was first planted in Napa by Joseph Phelps in the 70’s and then gradually planted all over CA. By the 90’s there were tens of thousands of acres. Despite that, as a group, Syrah producers don’t yet have a handle on the varietal.

Mike does though. His idea is to take Syrah grapes from the edges of AVAs, from organically grown vineyards closer to the wild lands surrounding the valley floor (hence the name VERGE), ferment them using natural yeasts (which he believes gives the wine a “wild stamp”) and then age the wines with minimal intervention. What that means is that we don’t touch the barrels. We rack only once and use the wines’ lees to naturally clarify and soften.

Beyond just expression of site, which the French term “terroir”, we believe that great wines and great Syrah should be intresting to drink and thought provoking. When we do all sit down after dinner, we break out the good glasses and find a corkscrew, and go digging around in the cellar for something tasty. We hope you do too and we hope it’s a Syrah.