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Northern Hemisphere Syrah at the Ragen's
Seattle, WA
Tasted May 19, 2007 by Eric with 528 views
Introduction
Matt and Amy hosted a blind tasting of Big Reds with Syrah as the theme. The only rule was that the wines had to be either French or American. All wines were bagged, and people had a chance to taste all 7 before deciding their top 3 choices.
Flight 1 (7 notes)
Red
2003 Alban Vineyards Syrah Reva Alban Estate Vineyard
My #1 and group WOTN. Incredibly dark. A complex nose that is big, meaty and loaded with menthol and tar. Mmm, tasted blind this obviously seemed to be an Alban with lots of blackberry, spicecake and blood. This is a HUGE wine but actually pretty vibrant despite the sheer size and density. This ended up being the wine of the night and was my top choice for sheer impressiveness (although the one Crozes-Hermitage present was a lot more pleasant to drink with dinner).
Red
2003 W. B. Bridgman Cellars Syrah Yakima Valley
My #7 and my least favorite wine of the night. A bright nose with raspberry, violets and LOTSA volatile acidity. This smells OK right now but is going to crater as that VA takes over. There is already a muddiness to the nose that I find displeasing. The palate is tart and lean. No thanks.
Red
2001 Cayuse Syrah Bionic Frog
My #4. A nose that screams of hugely charred oak barrels. Spicy with a bit of brown sugar on the palate. Pretty darned smooth actually, but this needs aeration to get past all of that oak. You could get hints of nice, peppery Syrah underneath the heavy toast, but the fruit is really battling to come out right now.
Red
2004 Emmanuel Darnaud Crozes-Hermitage Les Trois Chênes
This was my #2 wine of the night and a rather easy blind guess as the one French wine in the lineup. (I was even thinking it had to be a Crozes, as it lacked the structure of a Hermitage, the acid of a Cote Rotie and the sheer animal character of a Cornas.) Mmm, nice wine and gorgeous with rack of lamb! Sanguine, black pepper, and black cherry. Really elegant on the palate, sappy, pure, this is what I want to drink!
Red
1996 Araujo Estate Syrah Eisele Vineyard
My #6. Light color. Nice notes of pepper. Fairly present acidity. A nice, light, vibrant wine. Once unveiled it was clear that the 11 years of bottle age had helped this to mellow, but it hadn't gained any great measure of secondary complexity. This was a nice wine that was lost in the generally much younger and brawnier lineup.
Red
2005 Owen Roe Syrah Ex Umbris
My #5. A bit stemmy on the nose. The palate is pretty persistent, peppery, nice balance, very drinkable.
Red
2004 Pride Mountain Vineyards Syrah
My #3. Another huge, ripe wine. Massive spicecake on the palate. I suspected it might be the Pride with that spicy Foley signature. At first this was rather heavy, but the bottle ended up in front of me and drank quite well with the rack of lamb.