Free Jasmin

Jasmin 1996 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – This is the first bottle of a quantity of these that has not been a wretched, stewed mess (and/or corked). And while it’s no great wine, it is at least good…and, for a change, tastes like a Côte-Rôtie rather than a toxic waste dump. Keening acidity, brittle and somewhat flaky dried-meat aromatics that blend seamlessly into an equally brittle and flaky structure, and a dusting of blended peppercorns. Quite pleasant. Of course, a Jasmin Côte-Rôtie should be a good deal more than “quite pleasant,” but at this point I’ll take what I can get. (11/11)

Silver syrah

Sierra Vista 1999 “25th Anniversary” Syrah (El Dorado) – 13.5%. Succulent maturing-blackberry fruit braced by leafy and somewhat brittle tannin and coal dust. A bit coniferous. This wine is diverging in a fashion that should lead anyone still holding it to make a choice: wait for further maturity in the fruit (which will undoubtedly occur), or recognize that the structural elements are not aging on the same curve and choose to drink up before they become actively intrusive (which I also think is somewhat inevitable). Right now it’s in a good place, but whether or not it ever gets to “better” will very much depend on one’s view of that choice. (10/11)

Oak-K

Domaine de la Terre Rouge 1999 Syrah Sentinel Oak Pyramid Block (Shenandoah Valley) – This is really singing at the moment. Very early maturity, but still enough maturity to have made it worth the wait. The wine is brown. Not in color, but in tone and aroma. There’s lingering purple, but mostly it’s brown. Baritone. Incipient autumnal. Late afternoon. I’m glad I have it in quantity, though the dozen bottles I wasted over the years hoping for the slightest bit of development…well, I wish I had them back. (10/11)

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)

Weeping between N & P

Graillot 1999 Crozes-Hermitage (Rhône) – Meat lacquer. Beautiful, if a bit short, but this has done everything one would have asked of 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)

Shy oatmeal

Allemand 1999 Cornas Chaillots (Rhône) – Still sorting itself out, but the folders are starting to populate. In one, there’s an herb-infused slow-cooked meat, still enveloped in a certain mystery. In another, something very floral and even a little aggressively aromatic. In a third, rocks piled upon rocks. This is still headed somewhere, and though it’s quite approachable now I think there’s more to see before it decides to stop for a rest and an idealized drinking experience. (11/10)

Let's go, man

Allemand 1995 Cornas Reynard (Rhône) – Hey Zeus, this is good. Entering a bit of a soy phase, but it’s soy-soaked springbok jerky, very saline and entirely meaty. There’s salty brown minerality, too. Herbs, sometimes (though not always) found in older Cornas? Not so much, but in their place is a sort of lurid necro-floral aroma that’s really much better than that descriptor makes it sound. Balanced, still muscled despite much maturation, and really beautiful…if you’re a carnivore, that is. (11/10)

Bulls

Havens 2004 Syrah “MJ” (Dry Creek Valley) – Glancing at the label rather than actually reading the text, this looks like an Unti wine, which threw me a bit until I got my hands on the bottle. 14.5% alcohol. It’s syrah, all right, and New World syrah at that. And it’s tasty enough, getting pretty quickly to the leathery dark berry portion of the evening’s entertainment. Complexity? No, not really. But as a quaffer, it’s quite nice. (11/10)

Ata boy

Ata Rangi 2001 Syrah (Martinborough) – Aging faster than the pinot noir from the same house and year, which is probably a combination of site and vine, but could also just mean that more stake is placed on the success of the pinot. A well-read and somewhat intellectual wine with bushy eyebrows, seated in a well-worn leather chair in the corner of a dark, smoky drawing room, dusty tomes and old pipes strewn about the surrounding tables. I don’t know if I’d call it fully mature, yet, but it has probably learned all it is going to from its maturation, and the future might hold more unpredictability. This is the best aged New Zealand syrah I’ve had, but since that personal category is largely unpopulated there’s not much to that qualification. Perhaps more important: it was worth aging. (10/10)

Guy

Jasmin 1996 Côte-Rôtie (Rhône) – Just as bad as the rest of the bottles, though there’s still that fleeting, two- or three-minute flirtation with a lovely, entirely typical aroma of meat and violets. I’m not going to open these to drink anymore (I still have five, I think), but in the absence of actual flaws I think they might make decent enough cooking wines. As it, they’re merely an expensive lesson in unguarded enthusiasm for too-good-to-be-true pricing on older wines. (10/10)

Their Tablas is our gain

Tablas Creek 2005 Syrah (Paso Robles) – Burly but not overbearing, loading up the wagon with blackberries and blueberries, leather, roasted nuts, and rich California ripeness. There’s earth and baritone to this wine, and it’s balanced and structured enough to reward a fair bit of cellaring, I think. (8/10)

Durell hand cream

Edmunds St. John 1993 Syrah Durell (Sonoma Valley) – Glacially-cellared, and this was in mind as we opened the wine, because in retrospect I’m not sure I’ve ever had a Durell syrah that I thought was fully mature. This one gave its best effort, though, and is the closest I’ve come. Very masculine, all rippling muscles and five o’clock shadow, wrapping dark blackberry residue in leather and tarnished metal buckles. Lingers, a very long while. Very, very good. (8/10)