I've been thinking for a while that I need to
drink my way through some
Syrahs...I had one about six
years ago, and at the time I
recoiled from it--probably it was too
dense and
tannic for my taste at the time. More recently, I've been drinking a good number of
Rhone wines, almost all of which
incorporate Syrah to some degree. This one was cheap, the 1998 version was rated a "
Best Buy" by the
Wine Spectator, and the
1999 Pepperwood Grove Zinfandel I had a while back was fine, so I put down the $8.
It was OK. It was an interesting, dense red, nearly purple and almost opaque. The aromas were spicy, centering around black pepper but incorporating a little plum. The taste is a little hard to describe--the wine was full bodied and kind of reminded me of caramel. The finish was short, as any real tannins were little in evidence. I drank this alongside some lentil soup with sausage meatballs, to which a bit of this wine was added...it helped the meal and the wine go together, but the experience was still kind of one dimensional.
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