Browse Tag

syrah

Guard do-tree

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 1999 Syrah Sentinel Oak Pyramid Block (Shenandoah Valley) – 14.5%. I bought a pretty fair quantity of this wine, a long while back, from a store that was closing (well, moving) and clearing out full cases of whatever it didn’t want to move at pretty extraordinary prices. This was one of the offerings, and I acquired it for a song. That song, however, has been playing the same tune over and over for about a decade, to the point where I had almost given up on the wine ever moving from its highly primary and decidedly uncomplex starting point. Well, things have changed, and in a hurry (at least based on this bottle). Wonderfully mature, though early in that period, with smoke and dust eddying bacon, dried quince, and hedgehog mushroom aromas into a low-atmosphere helix of deliciousness. The structure has not fallen away, but is well-resolved enough to really let these lovely aromas through. I have little confidence that the rest of the bottles will be identically expressive – that’s how bottle (really, cork) variation works – but there is, at last, a glimpse of this wine’s delicious endgame. (10/11)

Deux rell

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Corked, I think. No obvious TCA on the nose, but it’s so muted and suppressed, despite an obvious surge of both structure and fruit somewhere within, that I can’t figure out what else it might be. This is the second bottle from the same stash that has been like this, so maybe the fault lies elsewhere. Whatever the cause, it’s a shame. (9/11)

Edmunds St. John 1995 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Long believed to be a myth, a hoax, a legend, and yet here it is: a mature ’95 Durell. I never thought I’d see the day. Meat, soil, wilted muscle, and deep red light in a slow-moving whirlpool of…hey, does anyone remember that semi-horrid old Disney flick The Black Hole? Remember the special-effects visualization of said singularity? (No? Go Google it.) It tastes like that. But better. Much, much better. (10/11)

Marsanne, you don’t have to put on the red light

Marsanne 2007 Crozes-Hermitage (Rhône) – Really, that’s the guy’s name. This, however, is a red. As a cooperative Crozes, it’s not bad: baked-out fruit with some roasted peanuts and a warming comfort suffusing the whole thing. It’s pleasant. But it’s not a cooperative Crozes, which makes it about twice as expensive as it should be based on the quality. I’d say ambitions were not met here, but I suspect ambitions (or their lack) are part of the problem. (8/11)

Beatified Fitzgerald

Edmunds St. John 2001 Syrah (California) – As much as I adore Steve Edmunds’ wines, I’m now fully convinced that they’re almost never ready. Some of his oldest work (not this), tasted of late: nope, still not ready. This, a multi-site blend of which I drank a rather embarrassing quantity while thinking it was progressing with one bottle, then regressing with another. It’s still not “ready” in a sense that fans of full maturity would wish. What it is: structured, frankly a little bit closed, feinting at the dark, vaguely mean-spirited berries within, and doing a frustrating dance where it begins to emerge and then tortoises in on itself. I almost want to send a bottle of this to someone with a cold basement who doesn’t like wine, just to spare myself the bottle-uncorking curiosity that has obliterated most of my stock, and then ask for it back in twenty years. It probably still won’t be ready. (Oh: in case this carping obscured the more important point, it’s a really good wine that’s going to be really really good one day. I’m sure of it. Some religious text somewhere must say so.) (8/11)

Good broth

Bonnefond 1999 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – Cooked caramel butter. Some earth and minerality, but this both tastes and feels “made,” and I don’t care for it. (5/11)

Past-tense bloom

Ogier 1999 Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes “La Rosine” Syrah (Rhône) – Sophisticated. Dust and pepper. Perfumed. From the ultra-cold cellar that is the source of so many of the older Rhônes I drink, but in this particular case I think the bottles from my warmer but more consistent cellar have shown better of late. Probably cork variation. (5/11)

Painful wing

Wind Gap 2008 Syrah Armagh (Sonoma Coast) – 12.7%. Before they became monstrous tubs of goop, there was a time when the signature of certain Aussie shiraz regions was a soy/bacon/Worcestershire aroma that took the grape to one of its organoleptic extremes. At a much lower alcohol than anyone would expect, this syrah follows that soy-soaked path, almost to the point of caricature. It’s quite tannic, and time might bring some tamer personality traits. But I doubt it. (5/11)

Jeff

Chateau Tahbilk 1994 Shiraz (Goulburn Valley) – The vines for this wine were planted in 1860, ungrafted and pre-phylloxera. And while I can’t say if it’s the vines, the terroir, or the winemaking, you have to toss everything you think you know about Aussie shiraz when faced with this wine in your glass. Brash acidity, tart reddish-black berries, peppercorns, cedar, and black dust…no, this isn’t what one thinks of as Australian shiraz, but neither is it European; almost no classic syrah from France or elsewhere tastes like this, either. I can’t decide if this is just a little past its best or is merely amidst a very long and lingering maturity; just based on this bottle I’d guess the former, but I’ve had older versions that were still in development, so patience could also be warranted. This is a true treasure, and proof that its neighbors wines don’t have to be made as they are. Whether or not one prefers that they are is a different question, of course. (5/11)

Skins

Seppelt 1986 Sparkling Shiraz “Show Reserve” (Barossa Valley) – Right out of the bottle, there’s the baked soy and caramel thing that I loathe, and too often find, in Barossa shiraz. But that doesn’t last long, and after an hour or so of nudging and sipping, the last glass is by far the best. Moreover, I fear there was still more to come as the dregs are drained, though of course I’ll never now. The intended froth is still present but the wine is so full-bodied (and this is in a worldwide, not strictly Barossan, context) that you don’t much notice it after the first few sips. Luscious dark fruit, certainly sun-drenched but not overly so, and black pepper, with a more particulate and coal-dust texture than I would have expected. Fun just because sparkling shiraz is, but with a serious side as well. This wine, decades ago and from a different (and older) vintage, was the one that convinced me sparkling shiraz could be something other than a parlor game and the setup for jokes about goat sacrifice. I’m glad to see that little has changed. (11/10)