97-Points by Vinous.
Vivid purple. Powerful dark berry, cherry pie, incense, potpourri, musky herb and spicecake aromas show outstanding clarity and pick up a smoky mineral flourish with aeration. Sweet and chewy on the palate, offering deeply concentrated but energetic blackberry, cherry preserve, five-spice powder and floral pastille flavors that are given lift and spine by a core of juicy acidity. Blends richness and finesse smoothly and finishes incredibly long and spicy, with youthfully firm tannins adding shape and final grip. 
Blend: 50% Syrah, 22% Grenache, 14% Graciano, 8% Petite Sirah and 6% Touriga Nacional. 
 
97-Points by Jeb Dunnuck.
There was a single foudre of the 2017 Heart Stone Vineyard, which checks in as a blend of 50% Syrah, 22% Grenache, 14% Graciano, and the rest Petite Sirah and Touriga Nacional that was mostly destemmed. Showing even better from bottle than barrel, it offers a stunning nose of ripe blueberries, black raspberries, ground pepper, and violets. Full-bodied, rounded, and seamless on the palate, it has a beautiful sense of complexity and purity paired with serious depth of fruit and opulence on the palate.
 
Adelaida District AVA
Covering the Santa Lucia Range in the northwestern portion of the greater Paso Robles appellation, the Adelaida District AVA reaches from 900 feet to over 2,000 feet in elevation. The appellation does well with Rhone and Bordeaux varieties as well as Zinfandel.
 
Heart Stone Vineyard
The Heart Stone Vineyard is a small 7 acre vineyard planted on a gentle South slope of limestone and shale. With 8 different clones of Syrah, 4 of Grenache and 1 Mataro, we aim to produce a wine that is both compelling and complex. We typically co-ferment all the varieties together with a high proportion of whole clusters, producing a tannic and spicy wine that has great purity and complexity. We age this wine with very little new oak in mostly larger puncheons for 20-28 months. Our wines are never racked off their lees and are bottled unfined and unfiltered.
 
Saxum’s Justin Smith ~Winemaker
I just adore the 2017 Heart Stone Vineyard. As many of you veterans will know, I like to have fun with this cuvée and often use it as a guinea pig if you will. The 2006 saw zero new oak and all stems. The 2011 was all aged in concrete. Well, the 2017 vintage was all aged in 1 used 3200L foudre. The absence of new oak really lets the fruit shine through, and the large vessel really kept the aromatics on the pure vineyard driven side of things… I’d say camphor, cherries, and a damp pine forest. The purity of fruit flavors that come through in the mouth are remarkably intriguing. Of all the 2017 wines, this is the one I’m drinking right now (besides the Gratias). In spite of all the big bruiser varieties in this blend, Syrah, Touriga Nacional, Petite Sirah, Graaciano, it is a surprisingly very open, elegant wine. Go figure!