Our philistine syrah tastings

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VS

Victor de la Serna
Spam warning: I am a fan of syrah, I grow syrah (and a bunch of local things, so I'm not 100% politically incorrect, I guess) and I make wines with syrah in them. I think it's one of the very few 'international' varieties that make sense, climate-wise and terroir-wise, in the forlorn southwestern corner of Europe.

Syrah was first planted here less than 20 years ago. The vineyard surface is rather small, but there are now quite a few Spanish syrahs out there. We've just tasted more than 40 of them (all wines with at least 85% syrah - thus varietal under European Union regulations). It's all in Spanish, but just in case you have any interest, here are the links to the two tastings and a story on why syrah is not fully despicable here:

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originally posted by VS:
Our philistine syrah tastingsSpam warning: I am a fan of syrah, I grow syrah (and a bunch of local things, so I'm not 100% politically incorrect, I guess) and I make wines with syrah in them. I think it's one of the very few 'international' varieties that make sense, climate-wise and terroir-wise, in the forlorn southwestern corner of Europe.
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Interesting reading, Victor. Thanks! One question: how do avoid conflict of interest questions re Finca Sandoval in this tasting? Do you recuse yourself? Leave the room? Just curious, as the same situation arises for me when reviewing research grants and we get one from a colleague or collaborator.

Mark Lipton
 
I wasn't part of the second panel, the one in which my two wines were tasted (there were two older, 2001, wines we included to get a glimpse of how Spanish syrahs evolve, and one of the two was mine - our first harvest). Over the past decade we have tasted a dozen and a half FS wines, and I'm simply not included in the three-person panel when we have them. We rotate a half-dozen people. And we always taste blind, of course.
 
Just to make amends for our intolerably philistine ways, our next tasting has been of Barolo 2006 - much more politically correct:

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originally posted by VS:
Just to make amends for our intolerably philistine ways, our next tasting has been of Barolo 2006 - much more politically correct:

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elmundovino.elmundo.es
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The names of the Elio Grasso wines are mixed up - they should be Gavarini Chiniera and Ginestra Casa Mate. Just to be pedantic...
 
Thanks for the correction - the dangers of cut-and-paste, I'm afraid.

Yes, there are tasting notes, Jeff - in Spanish, unfortunately. But it's a good occasion to improve your Spanish wine-tasting vocabulary with all sorts of descriptors - especiado, arndanos, menta poleo, tierra mojada, trama tnica compacta... :-)
 
Same for me - I did not see tasting notes.

Victor, is there a plan to cover other wines as well?

In any case, from this small sample, it seems that you guys have a very positive view on the vintage.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Thanks, Victor. I'll look again. What I saw was the intro text and the box o' points.
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Click on any of the wines listed and you get the tasting notes, Jeff.

Mark Lipton
 
This is one of the rare elmundovino tastings conducted by just one guy: when we have a very good specialist, we trust him or her. That's the case, notably, with Jess Barqun on sherry and with Juancho Asenjo on Italian wines. I don't know any non-Italian wine journalists who know more about that subject than Juancho. These tastings were naturally done blind. (In Italy, three months ago.)

On the general valuation of the '06 vintage, I'll summarize the points he makes in his introduction (later in the week he'll add quick mentions of many more wines, rated below 17/20):

A rich, very complex vintage with some unexpected components. Part of Barolo and all of Novello and La Morra had immature wines with green tannin. However, Castiglione Falletto produced balanced, expressive, deep wines. There were two faces to Monforte: facing Barolo, with the same problems as Barolo's, but elsewhere, on older subsoils, much better, floral wines, but with powerful tannins that need bottle age. Serralunga showed an amazingly high level, with only a sprinkling of middling ones, great aromatic complexity, and massive but very fine tannins.

The old Elveziano subsoils were the key: most of the great wines of this vintage were grown on them.

The vintage recalls the exceptional 1999 with a little more density, and with similar piercing acidity. A classic vintage which joins '89, '96 (this one, a little lower because of a lack of body, and tannins and acidity that were hard to bring together), '99, '01 and '04. If you want thrills and aging ability, bet on '06; if you want to play it safe, or enjoy the wines earlier, or you aren't well-versed on these complicated wines, go for '07.
 
In another brazen (and probably futile) attempt at atonement for having dared to suggest that syrah could be grown usefully in Spain, we have now published another politically correct tasting. After the one on expensive barolos, this one, of reds which retail for 6 euros or less on the local market, should be particularly up the disorderly alley as there are lots of honest, no-spoof, unoaked or lightly oaked wines in the lot. In addition, a number of them are available in the US, often for less than $10 - heck, I see that even the hallowed Chambers Street Wines carries three of them... So maybe there's a chance you'll discover one or two good ones here:

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