Ex Umbris
⏳ Drinking Window
2024 - 2032
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Grilled lamb chops, smoked beef brisket, wild mushroom stew
✨ Technical Specifications
Ex Umbris, translating from Latin as 'Out of the Shadows,' is a dramatic and expressive Syrah that beautifully showcases the rugged terroir of Washington's Columbia Valley. The name historically references the wine's resilience and its ability to emerge triumphantly from challenging growing conditions, capturing the dark, mysterious, and deeply concentrated nature of Pacific Northwest Syrah. Sourced from premier, sun-drenched vineyards in the Yakima Valley and broader Columbia Valley, the grapes undergo gentle fermentation in small open-top fermenters before aging in French oak barrels. This meticulous, low-intervention approach coaxes out the grape's signature savory complexity, yielding a wine defined by dark fruit, exotic spices, and a distinct earthy undertone that has made it a benchmark for Washington Syrah.
🍾 About the Producer
Established in 1999 by David and Angelica O'Reilly, Owen Roe is named in honor of the 17th-century Irish patriot Owen Roe O'Neill. Operating across the Pacific Northwest, the winery bridges Washington’s Yakima Valley and Oregon’s Willamette Valley, celebrating cool-climate microclimates, diverse volcanic and windblown loess soils, and dry, high-sunlight ripening conditions. Following a brief period under corporate ownership, the O'Reilly family repurchased the estate in 2024 to reassert their founding independent vision. The viticultural and cellar philosophy prioritizes rigorous low-yield vineyard management, hand harvesting, small-lot fermentations, and judicious use of French oak barrel aging to preserve varietal clarity and site-specific typicity. Sourcing from benchmark terroirs such as Red Willow and DuBrul, Owen Roe produces critically acclaimed single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Chardonnay alongside value-driven cuvées under their Sharecropper’s and Corvidae labels, delivering structured, cellar-worthy expressions marked by vibrant acidity and deep concentration.
🍇 Grapes
Syrah
🍷 ABV
14.1%