Soul of Syrah: Seeking Pimp Input

Hmm, the title seems a little racy, but I didn’t intend … oh never mind.

So, I posted an announcement in Wine Talk about our new advocacy and wine review publication, The Soul of Syrah, and it sank like a rock. Does that mean syrah is truly dead? Is it a good thing we named it the ‘Soul’ of syrah?

Anyway, I am seeking community input here because we are imminent on launch. We’re trying to spread the word, get the blog up and create a rich environment, putting out a call for samples, and looking at August as the first mailing. Any advice, good bad or indifferent, will be appreciated. (“Give up,” is the only advice we won’t listen to!)

We are unabashedly a syrah-advocacy effort. Strictly grass roots, and straight to consumer and media. Although reviews will be very laser-focused, we are organizing them entirely differently from existing publications (see thread in Wine Talk). Our aim is to move syrah sales.

As part of every issue, we want to invite a guest essayist from retail/wholesale. We’ll also be looking for retailers who want to offer time-limited Soul of Syrah packs. At this time, advertising special offers via our blog, monthly emails, and in the print publication is FREE. Eventually, we’ll charge a minor cross-promotion fee, but for right now, we just want to get syrah flowing into the hands of consumers.

My partner Laura Ness and I are funding this entirely out of our own lint-filled pockets, so any advice, questions, concerns, guidance would be greatly appreciated!

This is great, Mary!

I think highlighting a seperate region in each issue would be a good idea. You could talk about the climate, the style/styles produced, list of producers, with tasting notes from wines produced from this region, with pictures and reviews. I feel one of the obsticles for people is finding the style(s) they like and the region(s) producers that make their style of preference.

I like the name.

Thanks, John!

Each issue will be about 30 pages (I hope) and will indeed include some article features on selected vineyards and producers. We want to explore how terroir/terrain influences syrah. For the first few issues, we’ll keep coverage pretty broad, but if response is good we would indeed like to have a regional focus in issues moving forward.

We’ll be doing some things very differently, and I think you’ll find it interesting. First of all, we will have one or two actual syrah-producing winemakers sitting in on each of our review panels. So be prepared for some brutal honesty. In addition to quick profiles of each wine reviewed, we expect our reviewers to exercise laser clarity and to discuss obvious factors like oak, pH, weight, acidity, tannins, fruit ripeness, and production faults like excessive VA. We will also record and transcribe our tasting sessions in order to excerpt some of the most interesting and insightful commentary for publication, and for audio clips of the panel commentary on The Soul of Syrah blog.

Second, we will not be issuing scores of any kind.

But we WILL sort the wines reviewed into four levels. And the reviews will be printed by section, not alphabetically or by score.

Level I: fruity, approachable
Level II: spicy and elegant
Level III: Hun warrior style
Level IV: hedonistic and rich

Each section will have an introductory paragraph explaining the basic qualities that the wines in that section have to offer the consumer, and some general food-pairing suggestions.

Reviews within each category will be sorted by suggested retail price, from low to high. This, I think, will make the reviews really applicable for the everyday wine buyer (I like spicy, elegant syrahs, and I want to spend $15-$40 . . . or, I’m putting together a wine tasting and I want one of each style, in the $30 range). At the same time, producers will see how our panel categorizes the wine, along with detailed comments.

Re styles, what about “Smells like bacon, ass and old burnt dirt and I LOVE it!”?

Hi Mary,

Best of luck with this venture!

Being a big fan of syrah, I’ll be very interested in reading your articles.

Brett

Level III, baby. My favorite style, too. We’ll have to come up with a secret handshake for you Roberto … something that means Level III.

On the blog, we’re going to have 10 challenge tasks for readers. As the tasks are completed, the reader is awarded booty like sugar skull tatts and embroidered badges (like in Boy Scouts, only this is Syrah Scouts). People who complete all 10 tasks will get a pair of Riedel O syrah glasses, etched with the yet TBD SoS logo.
Some of the tasks are:

• Posting 10 syrah reviews on CellarTracker (Syrah Cellar)
• Hosting a syrah dinner (must send story and pics in for the blog)
• Hosting a syrah blind tasting (story and pics)
• Going on a syrah road trip (story and pics)
• 20-point quizzes on various topics

Instead of being just a top-down wine journal, we’re taking this the social media route. We want to get lots of happy faces of people partying with syrah to post on Facebook, the blog, and elsewhere.

I am so in for this.

this sounds awesome! I can see it already: a group of tasters going from winery to winery, with their home-made “S.o.S” shirts on - insisting on Syrah. … blind tastings where the blinding bags have “S.o.S” prominently displayed thereon.

I love the idea and would love to help in anyway possible. Good luck with the endeavor!

Mary, you go girl!!!

I look forward to reading this. I assume you’ll announce it here when it goes live?

Mary - definite interest here!

Sounds very cool. I look forward to reading this.

Syrah is one of the greatest grape varieties. Mainly because it makes wines so varied.

I hope you will be able to look at Syrah wines from various countries and climates. Even in France we have a big range from Cote Rotie, to Hermitage, to Chateuneuf, to Gigondas, to St Chinian, to Minervois to Roussillon. Its a grape that tells you a lot about its soil and its climate. The great thing is that it can make great wines in a number of climates, unlike Pinot noir for example, which is very particular.

The world’s greatest producers of Syrah are France and Australia but there are very good wines being made in the States, South Africa and even New Zealand.

When will you have the T-shirts available?

Sounds great!

Mary,

How do you intend to deal with the inherent conflict within the quoted paragraph? By unabashedly trying to push sales of syrah, doesn’t that cast some doubt on the fairness of the reviews? I don’t mean this question as an attack, but I really wonder how the reviews can be taken seriously inside of a publication trying to increase sales of the the wines.

I hope this comment doesn’t get this thread moved to the bashing thread.

I don’t think there is an inherent conflict, as the rag is meant to promote syrah, not individual wines. Promoting a poor/flawed wine does little to help the overall perception of syrah wines.

If my wines end up in the fruity section, I think I’ll cry.

Good luck to you.
My wife sells wine in the on-sale division for a wholesaler. From what I see, domestic syrah and even most domestic rhone varietals are a real tough sell. It seems even tougher (as compared to other varietals controlling for the economy) than it was 3-4 years back. The demand from restaurants, clubs, hotels definitely does not mimic the following on wineboards. Granted her company sells mostly the big-names and very few of the boutique wineries.

I do think one of the issues with Syrah-dominated wines is as someone else pointed out, the wines can be so different in character. I think this might make it tougher to build a general enthusiasm for selling the varietal and confidence that it will be appreciated by the end-users. With so many small and new producers there definitely isn’t much brand recognition. This might not be true (or be a determining factor) in the smaller world of real wine enthusiasts, but it has a negative impact on sales to the average Joe/Jane. Especially when there is so much variance in one “syrah” vs another.

Excellent points, John.
I think this is our main hurdle. I also feel that one of Syrah strengths is it’s ability to reflect it’s site with such transparency. Pinot also comes in a wide range of styles, but does just fine. It’s just a matter of getting people to try the wines. I think a touring tasting crew is a great idea. Many of the events where Syrah is poured are expensive to attend, which excludes large amounts of people who would like/love the wines and start them on the path to find the styles/producers they like. The truth is, Syrah delivers seriously QPR, relative to the other major varietals.