Syrah night with Peninsula Berserkers

13 south Bay Area Peninsula folks (with a few interlopers from the wrong side of the Bay, including yours truly) got together last night for an evening of Syrah and Latin Tapas at LV Mar in Redwood City. My notes are pretty sketchy, but I’m sure a few others will add theirs:

1989 Giuseppe Mascarello Barolo - Not Syrah, but a welcome contribution from Rich: well developed, but with plenty of nicely aged, leathery fruit, I didn’t really take notes on this one, just enjoyed it.

1961 Natale Mascarello Barolo - More interesting and educational than rewarding as a wine, but still very enjoyable to try, pretty much OTH, faded, somewhat maderized, turning caramel/maple with time in the glass.

1994 Chave Hermitage - pretty decent fruit, though somewhat faded and a bit one-dimensional, good acidity, a nice showing for a non-celebrated vintage

2004 Chave Hermitage - hints of truffle on the nose, nice, medium fruit, medium body, still very youthful and just starting to show hints of development. Enjoyable, but far too young.

1995 Clape Cornas - in a perfect place for my tastes, well into its plateau, with a nice balance of remaining fruit and tertiary development, light notes of leather, overall very nice balance.

2008 Rhys Syrah Skyline - where are the stems? Not much sign in this fabulously flavorful wine, with medium intensity, streak of violet acidity, extremely young but delicious.

2004 Kongsgaard Syrah Napa Hudson - noticeable oak on the nose, with good medium-intense dark fruit, nice structure but dominated by oak on the palate for my tastes.

2003 Big Basin Syrah “Rattlesnake Rock” - didn’t write a note, but remember it being a nicely framed fairly big, forward syrah, well balanced, and particularly not showing as much oak as I thought it might.

1999 Lagier Meredith Syrah - Very nice medium dark fruit, excellent structure, showing some interesting complexities and flavor layers. This is the first bottle of this wine I’ve opened that showed even a hint of beginning to age, though it’s been a few years since I had one. Showing some fascinating savory/mulberry character. Really nice, and hopefully a portent of things to come with another decade of bottle age.

2003 Edmunds St. John Syrah Wylie Fenaughty - Lighter body than either the Lagier or Dehlinger, a little faded perhaps, showing some apparent bottle sweetness.

1997 Dehlinger Syrah Estate - very nice medium deep, darker fruit, good structure, still quite youthful with just some hints of development, bit of sweetness on the finish. A really nice bottle.

2007 Delas Hermitage Les Bessards - didn’t take a note

1997 Paul Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle - musty old leather slightly funky nose, showing plenty of age. What a distinction between this and the 97 Dehlinger.

2009 Domaine Faury Saint Joseph - from memory, nice, fairly lush dark bright fruit, very young and primary.

2010 Saxum Broken Stones - big, rich, and lush, but not syrupy, with good structure. I haven’t had a Saxum in quite a few years, and this was a nice reintroduction, excellent example of a wine in this bigger style.

2008 Denis Mercier Syrah Valais (Switzerland) - Zippy, intense, quite young and primary, all kinds of electric violet purple haze fireworks going on in this.

2006 Vieux Telegraphe - Grenache. Not a lot more to add.

May have been another couple of wines I missed, but this should be most of them.

Nice notes!

By bottle sweetness do you mean fruity sweetness or the actual perception of residual sugar?

very nice notes alan. sounds like a great time.

Berry, I don’t mean RS, or even fruity sweetness, I mean that apparent sweetness that is left with faded, aged fruit, as in an old bottle.

Thanks, you were missed, and your ears must have been burning at a few points

Quite a nice lineup of wines, Alan. Wisht I coulda been there. Don’t suppose Cyrus was there, was he??
Those L-M Syrahs are sorta ageless.
Tom


Our lineup tomorrow night:
Some Rhones from the Archives June 17, 2015

1. SierraVista Syrah ElDorado (12.5%) 1987
2. ZacaMesa Syrah ChapelVnyd/SBC (13.5%) 1993:
3. JosephPhelps Syrah VinDuMistral NapaVlly (12%) 1986:
4. Swanson Syrah NapaVlly (EB; 13.5%) 1993: $27.00
5. EdmundsStJohn Syrah SonomaVlly (12 1/2%) 1989: $26.00 (SWC)
6. EdmundsStJohn Syrah DurellVnyd/SonomaVlly (12 1/2%) 1990: $28.00
7. EdmundsStJohn Syrah GrandHeritage Calif (13.5%; 58% DurellVnyd/SonomaVlly, 42% FenaughtyVnyd/ElDorado) 1993:
8. EdmundsStJohn Syrah DurellVnyd/SonomaVlly (13.6%) 1993:
9. OjaiVnyd Syrah Calif (TW) 1988: $14.00 (Arg)
10. TheOjaiVnyd Syrah Calif (13%) 1993:
11. Dehlinger Syrah RRV (EB; 13.5%) 1992:
12. AlbanVnyds Syrah Reva AlbanEstate/EdnaVlly (13%) 1993:
13. AlbanVnyd Lorraine AlbanEstate Syrah EdnaVlly (15.9%) 2002: $73.50
14. AlbanVnyd Seymour’sVnyd Syrah EdnaVlly (16.2%) 2002: $93.50

LMAO! you can only imagine!

No Cyrus, though I think he lives in the area. Don’t think he hangs out here, though. Some interesting wines in your lineup, will look forward to the notes, particularly the 92 Dehlinger (first year, I think, and I’ve never had it), and the Phelps is kind of a unicorn.

Makes sense. Thanks.

Very nice! Looks like I’m going to try to have make one of these!

Thanks for the notes, Alan. It takes work to bring photos and TNs to the table, to share with us here, so thank you again.

The 08 Rhys 'Shoe, we had it last year as part of our Rhys tastings we did down here in the OC. I pasted my note below to help add to the discussion. I find I like the 09 and 10 better, FWIW. Speaking more broadly, I plan to stay with and buy the 'Shoe syrah each vintage, as I like the pepper and older world style that Rhys does with the site.

Looks like also an older BB 'Snake made it in. Pretty cool to see that. Bradley is sharing the new versions of 'Snake with us in a few weeks and I am eager to see what his new vision is for this plot, the style.

Hey, no Copain? I figured you’d drop one into the mix?

• 2008 Rhys Syrah Horseshoe Vineyard - USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains (1/17/2015)
  Rhys Tasting With The Gang–Part 2 (My Place): Next to the 2009, this 2008 comes across riper and certainly lacks the defining black pepper of the 2009. Cherry fruit, light herbal and a touch of blueberry preserve. Even with the decant this saw of about an hour earlier in the day and the slow ox time, was still tight at dinner.

Posted from CellarTracker

Frank, trying to stick with a little age on the wines I brought, so no Copain this night. Another time for sure.

Interesting comparison of the 08 and 09 Rhys, which we’d had them side by side. I can see your comments in this wine, maybe except for the tightness, it was so open and juicy, unexpected for a Rhys Syrah.

I really enjoyed this tasting! My first offline, appropriately centered on my first love in wine, Syrah. The only other bottle not mentioned above I recall was a Huet Petillant. My impressions are pretty similar to Alan’s:

*The 97 Dehlinger was truly fantastic.
*I need to drink more Chave. I’ve never had Northern Rhone wines of this pedigree. Neither was a true ‘a-ha’ wine but still most excellent. I got to the 94 early and the 04 late (as in 3 hours later) and couldn’t decide whether I preferred the secondary nature of the older wine or the breadth of fruit expression in the younger one. I think I was in the minority preferring them to the Clape.
*The Swiss wine was grapey and purple fruited. I liked it, in a small dose anyway. Shiraz.
*The Saxum, Kongsgaard, and Big Basin had oodles of delicious fruit. Cocktail wines, but darn tasty. I thought the Kongsgaard was the best of these. The 2010 Broken Stones noticeably better than a 2008 I had a few years back that was downright boozy.
*I only had a small taste of the Faury, but that’s a producer I will look for again in the future.
*The ESJ wine’s comparative lack of substance didn’t provide much charm. It drank well enough – it’s not sour or strict at this age – and it’s a good QPR, but boring compared to most of the fare on the table.

• The Rhys was one of my all around favorites and in a much better place than 4 years ago and balanced to age from here. I’ve barely bought any Rhys Syrah in recent years as I’ve cut down my orders and emphasized the Chardonnay. But this was stellar.
  *The 1961 Barolo – I really didn’t know what to make of this. “Maple” is apt. Although I much preferred the Syrahs on the table, this is the wine that I can most easily remember the taste of today. I’m not going to get hooked on that tertiary-only experience but this was still beguiling in its own way.

Yay Berserkers! And go Warriors!

FYI this was opened at 430 and decanted, back to bottle around 530. It was better at dinner than it was in the afternoon.

Edit – I thought about bringing the 08 Horseshoe… but Frank’s CT note was enough to dissuade me…

Guys, I am a dork. I thought y’all drank the 08 Shoe but I see it was the 08 Skyline. Makes sense now why Scott’s remark was not adding up for me as a I read it. We didn’t do the 08 Skyline last year during our Rhys tasting series and I am out of the wine, as well.

Scott, there is a shift on at Big Basin. We’re going to do the wines down here with Bradley in a few weeks and I will post notes afterwards. I do not believe the newer wines will be anything like the older ones, like the 03 above.

I’ve always liked the Big Basin wines. I was served an 05 Fairview last weekend and it was still hickory-bramble-blackberry goodness in no danger of fading. I bought them for years but ended up dropping them in favor of Bedrock and Pax 2.0 in the oaky ripe-but-classy part of the Syrah spectrum. If Bradley’s tastes shift a bit, so be it, less new oak and a little more savory would suit me. The Big Basin Pinots get overlooked I think.

The 05 and 07 Rattlesnake Syrahs are better than the 03 and I think will be worthy wines up to age 15 at least.

I heard quite a range of opinion on some of the wines. I might as well give some impressions. Note that the lack of organization meant the timing of when people tasted a given wine varied greatly, though there was much re-tasting.

The Huet and '61 Barolo were my faves. Wonderful sparkler with focus and depth. Nice fully mature Neb, pretty, good complexity, lightness.

The Big Basin continued to improve. Some vanillin from the oak, but fully enveloped by the fruit. A nice meatiness developed. At its best at the end of the evening. (Just revisited the unprotected remnants and its too oxidative to drink now.)

The ESJ was quite enjoyable when first opened, but later was sweet and simple.

I was one of the ones who thought the Rhys very structured, but not showing much fruit. Interesting statement on perception that there were two distinct camps on that. My bottles will stay buried for some more years.

The Dehlinger was hot and boring. The L-M was meh. Kongsgaard was big and boring. Saxum showed sunburn and monolithic darkness (and wins the award for least touched wine).

The Swiss one had wonderful floral aromatics but also seemed to have smoke taint. Improved with air.

Loved the Cornas. The '94 Chave Hermitage was also really nice, the '04 was too young.

The Saint-Joseph was a nice young bistro wine. Might develop well. Pretty, lots going on, but quite primary.

Vieux Telegraph - blech. Nothing wrong with it, per se, but this is an expression of Grenache I don’t enjoy.

I also preferred the Chaves, finding the Clape a little rough/hard, but we had a little discussion about 95 and I mentioned that 95 Chave is a bit like that too. At least compared to other Chaves - in general Chave is pretty refined compared to Clape, I think.

I was mentioning at dinner that my horizon for the 94 Chave would be long, because the 86 and 87 didn’t really start to stand out until they were older. The conventional wisdom is to drink the lighter vintages younger, but in a way I think that is a waste. For wines that age well even in poorer vintages, you can have fascinating and surprising experiences with older wines that may have been less impressive young.

My overall favorites were the two Chaves, the Rhys and the Monprivato. I really liked the Clape, the Dehlinger, and the ESJ as well. The 61 Barolo was a treat.

This was my first time with Saxum and while I don’t prefer that style, I thought it was pretty tasty.

The beer I brought was the De Garde Hose. I liked it and thought it was good with some of the spicy food. It came from Paul yesterday.

I forgot to mention my wine, the 97 La Chapelle. I’ve had a pretty good run with the reds I’ve brought to WB events, but this ended it. At the beginning I thought it was a little fragile and a little funky but okay. Later in the evening it just tasted leathery, pruney and old. Worst of the night at that point.