Community Tasting Note

forceberry wrote:

Thursday, January 19, 2023 - 100% Syrah sourced from multiple vineyards around the appellation, including both estate fruit and purchased grapes. The average vineyard age ranges from 20 to 50 years, depending on the parcel. Fermented in stainless steel, aged for 16 months in once used oak barrels. 13,5% alcohol. Annual production approx. 200,000 bottles. Tasted half-blind in a tasting of ten 2015 Saint-Joseph wines.

Somewhat translucent but also very slightly cloudy blackish-red color. The nose feels quite spicy and rather sweet with aromas of jammy dark fruits and ripe blackberries, some sweet black cherry tones, a little bit of perfumed floral character, light chocolatey mocha oak nuances, a hint of blueberry juice and an evolved touch of beef jerky. The wine is ripe, juicy and rather sweetly-fruited on the palate with a full body and intense flavors of succulent dark berries and rich plummy fruit, some cherry juice tones, a little bit of toasty mocha oak, light briny nuances of olive, a hint of sweet caramel oak and a faint sweet touch of vanilla and jammy red fruit at the tip of the tongue. The wine is moderately high in acidity with quite gentle medium-minus tannins. The finish is long, rich and juicy with a little bit of tannic grip and an intense, sweetly-fruited aftertaste of fresh black cherries and ripe dark plums, some savory woody tones, a little bit of toasty mocha oak, light ferrous notes of blood, a hint Kalamata olive and a touch of gravelly minerality.

A quite harmonious but also soft, sweet-toned and easy Saint-Joseph that has a very anonymous and generic feel to it - although the wine is somewhat recognizable for a Northern Rhône Syrah, the quite dominant mocha oak tones and jammy fruit characteristics lend a rather modern "Shiraz" feel to the wine. The wine is an amalgamation of fruity crowdpleaser and easy-drinking everyday red - both qualities I don't look for in a St. Joe. While a technically correct wine, this is something that's very hard to get excited about. Feels rather expensive for the quality at 28€. In our tasting the wine didn't receive any points from any of the ten participants, making it finish on shared sixth (ie. last) place.

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