Carlisle - 03 Syrah Bennett Valley Filtered vs. Unfiltered Experiment
Tasted December 13, 2009 by Loren Sonkin with 385 views
Introduction
Thanks to my friend Roland, I have been lucky enough to do this three times. Back in the 03 vintage Mike Officer released two versions of his Bennett Valley Syrah. The only difference was that one was filtered and one was not. The "point" was to see that filtering, at least a modern gentle version, has gotten a bad rap. The first two times, there was little difference, but I preferred the unfiltered. The crowd on those times preferred the filtered.
Last night, there was a pretty dramatic difference. It was, I think unanimous, that everyone preferred the filtered version. It really was more of a seamless wine that had come together. Of course, there could be bottle and/or cork variation, but I don't think you can argue that filtering at this level hurts a wine. The other question I guess is how well they will age. I would say that the filtered appeared more mature but I am not sure that was not an illusion.
Flight 1 (2 notes)
Although they both got 93's. I actually gave the filtered a 93+ which does not show up. Both wines were quite good, but side by side I preferred the filtered version.
Closing
Thank again to Roland for so generously sharing these over the years. And thanks to Mike O. for releasing the wines like this.