I’ll never been much of a syrah lover, but for some reason I do occasionally buy a bunch. In the 80s it was Guigal, then Rostaing in the early 90s. Towards the early part of the new millennium I tried several CA versions, but I never went for the shirazes. My general beef is that when the wine is clean it all too often reeks of rubber, bacon fat etc and when that blows away the wine almost never feels sexy enough that I want more than a glass.
With that in mind I’ll post on the Roll Ranch. For the lawyers out there: this is not a Central Coast Syrah. It’s designated CA and is grown in Ventura, as far as I can tell, and that apparently is outside the huge Central Coast AVA.
Wine indeed starts out reeking of rubber gloves. Fortunately I don’t dumb it and the wine actually comes around to yield a very nice selection of spices, blueberries and cassis. On the palate it is vibrant and nicely delineated with impressive length. All in all a relative winner that could score 93 or so, but far from memorable to me.
After this wine is gone, with generous helps of others I haul out a remnant of 2006 Carlisle, Rossi, Zin that has been sitting in the wine fridge since Wednesday. What a blast, this wine is even more primary and much richer on day three. Shows youthful lactic components, licorice root, anise, and loads of dark fruits. Huge palate impact, but refreshing as well, impressive length to finish off. I’d also score this 93, but this is a wine that really is memorable, can’t wait to try it again and again … Time to go count how many I have.
Roll Ranch Vineyards is over here in Upper Ojai. Not very many other vineyards as the weather gets pretty crazy hot but Adam seems to do a great job with the grapes. Had the '99 a few months ago that I thought was a pretty special wine.
Ryan