With a PhD in plant biology, for which he researched how red wine’s estrogenic qualities can fight metastatic breast cancer, Nico Azios knows methodology. So in 2011, after a handful of years working on harvests and in winery labs from Texas and Italy to the Gainey Vineyard in Santa Ynez, he decided to apply that rigor to his own syrah-focused label, Azios Cellars.
“What I wanted to do was concentrate on one varietal from one place and branch out from there,” said Azios one recent afternoon while sharing his full lineup with me at the Santa Barbara Wine Collective. “It’s been a very slow branching out.” Six years later, he’s released just four wines, though he has another four in the pipeline and plans for more in the vintages to come.
Syrah was an obvious choice, because he’d always loved the grape. “And once I started working with it, I felt that it was a chameleon varietal,” said Azios. He means that the grape — which is originally from France’s Rhône Valley and tends to make dark, savory wine — translates terroir especially well, offering distinct aromas and flavors depending on where it’s grown and how that season went.
