2005 Ridge Syrah Lytton Springs- USA, California, Sonoma County, Dry Creek Valley (10/22/2009)
Bought as a point chaser. Connoisseurs’ Guide gives three puffs and 95 points – quite a mark for those guys who I’ve generally felt are fairly reliable. Delivered yesterday I gave it 24 hours to recover from travel shock – nice guy I am!
Deep, deep purple. Tight as a tick to start. After a while it opens up, a little heat, a lot of blueberry and menthol, a bit of vanilla. Big and chewy, this is a young, tight and tannic wine. While enjoyable now, I won’t touch a bottle for 2 years. Massive blueberry fruit and more menthol, not much on the earthy end of things. The aromatics get better with air. While I don’t see a 95 pointer, I will go 91+ with a significant upside potential. High yummy potential. (91 pts.)
2006 Belle Pente Pinot Gris Reserve- USA, Oregon, Willamette Valley (10/22/2009)
Winemaker Brian describes this as a Alsatian grand cru style wine. It certainly is quite rich and ripe, loads of peach and other nice fruits. A bit oily. The sugar at 2% is a bit much as there isn’t quite the acidity to carry it. With food I found this quite lovely; still a bit over the top – as Brian admits. (88 pts.)
2004 Château Greysac- France, Bordeaux, Médoc (10/22/2009)
In the educate the SO category I opened this. Quite tight and lean (even after a 2 hour decant), a bit of charcoal and earth with medium weight and a fairly tannic finish. It opened up with more time, more fruit showing but still lean and actually went well with the London broil. This might get better over the next couple of years but it’ll never be more than a decent little Bordeaux quaffer. (84 pts.)
Great price on the RidgeSyrah…think it was $36 or so SRP.
The Ridge Syrahs have long been a conundrum for me. They are not the usual Calif Syrah in style. When Donn first tried me on their first Syrah ('96?), a pre-release
sample he brought to SantaFe, I raised bloody-hell with him about it. “Donn…this speaks more of Ridge winemaking than it does Calif Syrah”. He gave me this
cock-eyed look as if to say “What would you know”?? and admonished me to give it time.
He was, of course, right. It evolved into a very lovely Ridge wine…but an atypical expression of aged Calif Syrah.
I have since made my peace w/ the Ridge Syrahs and have grown to love them. They still, when young, speak more of Ridge winemaking than classic Calif Syrah
varietal character. But I’ve come to accept that the Ridge Syrahs are simply Draper’s signature expression of what Syrah gives at LyttonWest. And, from experience,
they do age into beautiful wines with time. Though still much different from other aged Calif Syrahs. They are built w/ structure and for aging.
But I can’t, for the life of me, understand CharlieOlken’s awarding it three meadow-muffins. It was way too tight to show that much I thought.
Same story on the Ridge Grenache and Syrah/Grenache blends. Atypical of Caalif but great Ridge reds.
Tom
Thanks for the note Tom. Yeah, the three puffs is a little surprising. Perhaps Charles’s a better man than I Gunga Din and can really tell where this wine is going. I think it’s going to be special and I’m glad to hear previous versions have aged well.
I will say that it softened considerably overnight.