“An Affordable luxury” is how a winemaker describes his top selling wine. If that was an attention getter, it worked for me. For starters, it counters the poorly thought out trend corporations latched onto to position a newly purchased brand as a “luxury brand.”
Amidst all the doom and gloom and a couple of shocking recent bankruptcies,focusing on affordable sure seems like a positive and creative way to market wine and maybe win over some new wine drinkers in the process.
This wine that’s an “Affordable Luxury” turns out to be one that can be enjoyed “Tous les Jours” (Every Day)!” And that is unusual, downright exciting.
The wine is Andrew Murray Vineyards “Tous Les Jours,” a 100% Syrah. It is available at every major West Coast supermarket, along with Total Wine & More and specialty wine shops. Probably even in Walmart and Walgreens.
So I grabbed a bottle just to see if if it lived up to the description, and here’s my note:
Andrew Murray Vineyards Santa Ynez Valley (Santa Barbara County, California) Tous Les Jours Syrah 2023 $25.
This is the winery’s affordable 100% Syrah from several sustainably farmed vineyards. It was open top, fermented and aged in French oak barrels for 16 months. It is unmistakably Syrah with its deep, dark color and attractive aroma of blackberry and notes of lavender, pepper and licorice.The palate is rich, round and full of ripe fruit flavors and dried herbs with light oak notes. The tannins are so well-integrated that the finish is long and invites a second glass. 93
It’s the real deal, and a heck of a deal. I’ve recently seen it priced around $15 a bottle in several places. Making wines, Syrah or others, affordable is a goal family owned wineries might consider.
While almost every supermarket has wines like Josh, Joel Gott, Meiomi, Barefoot and Yellow Tail piled high in pyramid shaped floor stacks, Andrew Murray Vineyard is on the shelves going up against the big marketing guys.
And doing quite well, as evidenced by this off the cuff comment from Andrew:
“We are proud that it has become the best-selling domestic Syrah in the US under $25. Clearly, we don’t face a lot of stiff competition…haha. We added Qupé to our family in 2024 and now can grow and craft even more Syrah…about 20,000+ cases per year.”
A Wine for the People
Syrah as an everyday wine is not the first candidate to come to my mind. But Andrew provides some personal thoughts to help us understand his choice:
“Andrew Murray Vineyards has been a love letter to Syrah since we began in the 1990s – I have tirelessly worked to get more people (beyond writers, somms, geeks) excited about and drinking more Syrah. We started our Tous les Jours label in 1998 as a Syrah for the people – not too ripe, not too funky, not marked by Brettanomyces – polished and balanced red wine – dark fruits with enough pepper and violets to never forget it is actually still 100% Syrah.”
He describes his winemaking style this way: “My style has the politeness of the French, and the brashness of the Australians. I walk the razor’s edge.”
Polite and brash to describe a style is like describing a wine as an affordable luxury, isn’t it?
Andrew Murray, the Person
I first met him early in his career when he was pouring wines alongside his parents at a Central Coast event. It struck me as odd that the family would name a new winery after its one and only, then 20-ish son. But when you heard him talk passionately about his wines, you knew that was a smart decision.
Here’s a little background he offered: “I started Andrew Murray Vineyards with passion and adoration for all things Rhône.”
A few other veteran Rhone Rangers likely have said something along the same lines, but Andrew Murray was 21 years old when he made his first Syrah in 1993. At that time, he was still a student at U.C. Davis but he had made wines earlier in Australia’s Barossa Valley during an internship there.
After that initial 50 case lot of 1993 Syrah lot from the family’s recently replanted vineyard, he forged ahead and was soon closely followed. Robert Parker described him as “ a rising star in the firmament,” and in 1999 The San Francisco Chronicle named him the “Winemaker To Watch.” In 2004, he was labeled “#1 Santa Barbara Wine Maverick” by Food & Wine Magazine.
For a detailed bio, the winery website is the place to start. Here, I’ll just mention a few of the highlights, peak moments, and an epiphany or two he experienced in pursuit of his Rhone passion.
His parents, Fran and Jim Murray, highly successful restaurateurs in Los Angeles, went on a culinary and wine tour around 1987 to Burgundy. At a restaurant named Esperance in Vizaley, the sommelier served Condrieu. To Andrew, then 15 years old, it was love at first sight or smell for Viognier.
In 1988, two years after selling their restaurants, his parents bought a 200 acre site in a remote part of the Santa Ynez Valley that eventually included 34 acres of vineyards that were the highest and steepest in the region.
They had a plan, and Andrew mentions that “The original idea was to be a Viognier specialist” as he believed “it was the next Chardonnay.”
But the Viognier cuttings from a winery in Sonoma were misidentified and turned out to be mostly Syrah. As Andrew confirms: “The first vineyard that we planted – the Roasted Slope – was actually Syrah, thank God. But we didn’t know about it for three years – when we got our first veraison! So, the first wines were “almost exclusively Syrah even though we founded ourselves to make Viognier.”
BTW: That confusion was not uncommon with Syrah and several of the Rhone varieties. Roussanne and Viognier were often misidentified.
When I recently approached Andrew about sharing other experiences via emails, he was wide open though the 2026 harvest was in full swing. This his 36th harvest and he is one busy winemaker after purchasing the Qupe brand and continuing the line along with his other projects. Those projects include managing about 150 acres spread out over three AVAs, selling some fruit to other winemakers and making wines.
The wine world was surprised to learn in 2024 that Murray had purchased the Qupe brand and inventory after its owner Vintage Wine Merchant went into bankruptcy. He somehow learned how to make an offer in the complicated bankruptcy system. After tasting the inventory involved, he came up with a price, and to his surprise it was accepted.
When I asked Andrew about the purchase he said: “I was always more an artist with a mildly analytical/scientific mind. Business sense has been hard earned through the years. We have made some amazing decisions and some wildly poor decisions, but we have always believed in slow and steady improvement and growth.”
This is how he announced the purchase of Qupe: “We’re bringing it back home.”
Paying homage to Qupe’s founder Bob Lindquist, he added “I was in his shadow when we started and admired him for being so manically passionate, like I ultimately became, about Rhône varieties.”
In my mind, Qupe never got as much media attention as did Bonny Doon Vineyards and a few others. But it was a major force behind the Syrah surge in the 1990s. Rich Cook wrote glowing reviews of Qupe’s wines, but the review at winereviewonline.com that says it best is this one from Robert Whitley:
“Qupe’s 2012 Santa Barbara County Syrah demonstrates the winery’s mastery of this grape variety. Elegant and firmly structured, it shows a hint of white pepper and spice on the nose, followed by mouth-watering blueberry fruit and a layered palate that finishes with impressive persistence. Drinking well now, but another three to five years in the cellar would reward anyone with that degree of patience.”
Riding With the Rangers
By 1996 Andrew Murray Vineyards was making all of 150 cases of Syrah. And by then Andrew Murray was accepted as a member of the Rhone Ranger group. But they were setting out on a wild ride. Thanks to the trailblazing efforts of the original Rhone Rangers, by 1996 Syrah was about to explode.
In 1996, California had fewer than 200 acres of Syrah. But by 2004, there were more than 15,000. It was no secret that Syrah was over-planted and many vineyards were ill-suited for the grape. Many Syrahs from warm sites were too ripe and powerful.
In 2004 the movie “Sideway” appeared, and opened the door for Pinot Noir while bad-mouthing Merlot. Oddly enough, in one brief scene, the main actor pokes fun of high alcohol red wines by holding up a bottle of…Andrew Murray Syrah.
They could have found much better examples of over-ripe Syrah, but it was clear that one way or another, Murray became identified with Syrah. For a good overview of the rise and fall of Syrah you should read the September 2020 Tablas Creek blog entitled “Syrah from Darling to Pariah…and Back.”
In 2010, the stories about Syrah were mostly negative, and I can’t help stealing from that blog to quote a comment back then:
“Eric Asimov wrote that same year in the New York Times” Is there still hope for Syrah? with the opening line: “There’s a joke going around West Coast wine circles: What’s the difference between a case of syrah and a case of pneumonia? You can get rid of the pneumonia.” The Rhone Rangers, doing their best to make lemonade out of lemons, turned the punch line into benefit tastings for global pneumonia prevention in New York and San Francisco, called Pneumonia’s Last Syrah.”
Maybe that kind of negative press has something to do with it, but In 2006, the 42 acre Andrew Murray Vineyard, winery and home were sold. The new owners quickly established Demetria Estate & Vineyards. At that time, his parents were ready to retire and sold everything except the brand name.
Back in the Saddle: Tous Les Jours
Before the sale, Andrew had already begun to source grapes from other vineyards and the owners of Demetria had agreed to sell him enough fruit to maintain continuity as he regrouped.
So beginning with the 2006 vintage, he was leasing a part of the old Firestone brewery where he created his own winemaking space. He continued exploring new sources of Rhone varieties and setting up lease agreements with vineyards in the Central Coast. He expanded his search into Paso, but mostly looked within Santa Barbara.
Owned by the Firestone family, the Curtis Vineyard was one of those vineyards, and Andrew worked with the family for its Curtis Family wines. It was a hectic period for sure and at one point, Andrew remarks that Adam Firestone “threw him a badly needed lifeline in 2014.
That was in the form of a long-term lease on the property and 200 acre vineyard.
It was like “going home again” by returning to Foxen Canyon Road.
So here’s Andrew on the current vineyard:
“We currently farm about 150 acres of grapes spread across 3 different vineyard sites and three appellations. Curtis Vineyard is our home vineyard, directly above our Estate Winery. It is home to 100 acres of grapes. We carefully and lovingly farm these grapes for ourselves and our myriad grape customers.”
He continues, “Curtis Vineyard began its life in the late 1970’s, just as grapes were beginning to be planted in the Santa Ynez Valley. The oldest section of vines is called Jurassic Park, and is home to some burly, own-rooted Chenin Blanc.
The majority of the vineyard is 25-30 years old and just hitting its prime. We have been slowly re-working the vineyard by grafting and replanting, and we have had some great success from these efforts. 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.
In addition to Syrah, we grow amazing Grenache and Mourvedre that make it into varietal and blended bottlings from the Estate. Lastly, we grow Roussanne and Grenache Blanc for our white blend, Enchante, and a bit of Viognier to co-ferment alongside the Syrah.”
Andrew Murray Vineyards Curtis Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley (California) Enchante 2025 $40
From the hillside vineyards, this 2025 Enchante brings together 55% Roussanne and 45% Grenache Blanc. They are fermented and aged in seasoned French barrels for 10 months. The color is light, bright yellow, and the aroma needs little prompting to reveal lovely ripe apricot and peach along with undercurrent of figs. The texture is rich, smooth, plush and the expansive flavors of stone fruit have a hint of walnut and then a little citrus takes this big mouthfilling wine to a clean, lively finish. 93
He also is working on another series of wines, the E11EVEN series, calling them “rebelliously blended wines.”
Back Home & Back in the Saddle
The way he emphasizes “home” and estate vineyard makes you realize he has come full circle. The family’s estate vineyard was sold in 2006, and 20 years later his winemaking is again focused on home vineyards along with a few special ones.
Andrew Murray Vineyards now offers several Syrahs in addition to Tous Les Jours.
The Other Affordables
Qupé Santa Ynez Valley, Santa Barbara County (California) Sauvignon Blanc 2025 $25
That French politeness and polish poke through here, though it is unmistakably Sauvignon.
The aroma is fresh melon with hints of flint, and green tea. A little grassiness emerges with aeration. It is medium bodied with a silky texture and attractive melon flavors. Well-balanced, it ends on a subtle lime and mineral note. Just enough acidity to add good length. My French friends would give this a very slight chill and bring out the oysters. If there’s anything left, they’d move on to the goat cheese. 92
Andrew Murray Vineyards Curtis Vineyard Santa Ynez Valley (California) Enchante 2025 $40
From the hillside vineyards, this 2025 Enchante brings together 55% Roussanne and 45% Grenache Blanc. They are fermented and aged in seasoned French barrels for 10 months. The color is light, bright yellow, and the aroma needs little prompting to reveal lovely ripe apricot and peach along with undercurrent of figs. The texture is rich, smooth, plush and the expansive flavors of stone fruit have a hint of walnut and then a little citrus takes this big mouthfilling wine to a clean, lively finish. 93
Qupé Central Coast Syrah 2023 $25
This Syrah began life at the Laetitia winery and was probably still in barrel when Murray purchased it. The rescue effort seems to have been successful enough to preserve Qupe’s reputation. It has that typical dark Syrah color and an aroma of ripe plum along with some leather and pepper. The flavors are fresh with lots of young black fruits and a touch of pepper. Balanced, smooth and easy to drink. Most people would be happy with this as their everyday red wine. Enjoy now and over the next year or two. 89.
So, in today’s wine scene. “Affordability” is the way to go.
Let’s knock off that “luxury wine” crap.
This was posted earlier at winereviewonline.com where you can find more reviews.
