TN: Carlisle Syrah BennettVlly '03..(short/boring)

Tried this last night:

  1. Carlisle Syrah BennettVlly (15.9%; 255 cs) 2003: Black/inky color w/ no bricking; intense blackberry/Syrah/spicy/licorice some peppery/cold-climate/black cherry liquer some pungent/ozone/peppery light smokey/oak complex nose; fairly tart very slight alcoholic intense blackberry/Syrah/black cherry liquer/boysenberry/huge fruit fairly smooth/lush light smokey/pungent/oak peppery/pungentmouthfilling/glycerined some complex flavor; very long big/ripe/mouthfilling intense blackberry/black cherry liquer/boysenberry/Syrah light toasty/oak/smokey some peppery/spicy rich/lush finish w/ smooth/plush tannins; lots of ripe fruit but not raisened or over-the-top; a classic Carlisle Syrah.

A wee BloodyPulpit:

  1. Killer Syrah in the Carlisle style. Huge fruit, great structure. The tannins have really smoothed out on this wine. Where will it go??? Haven’t a clue. Will it develop more complexity and those lovely floral aromatics of some Syrahs? Haven’t a clue. But it certainly is a killer Syrah right now.
    Does it display BennettVlly terroir?? Haven’t a clue. It has that slight cracked black pepper that cold-climate Syrah often shows, but I’m not sure that that’s unique to BennettVlly, as I get it in Carneros and PetalumaGap Syrahs as well, in addition to extreme SonomaCoast and Cambria Syrahs. So…yes…it spoke of cold-climate Syrah somewhat, but of BennettVlly?? Clueless, as usual. It had more unique character than the SonomaVlly '06 of the other day…so I guess that must be that terroir thing that all the wine geeks who are more knowledgeable than I blather about all the time.
    Tom

I drank an '05 Carlisle Bennett last night and it was terrific too. My wife said why do we buy those expensive wines when the Carlisle syrahs are so good. Good question.

And smart wife, I’d say.
Tom

Tom, was this the filtered or unfiltered bottle? This is the year Mike bottled both, and sold them in pairs for future side-by-side comparison :wink:

Alan,

That was a fascinating experiment by Mike. Neat that he planned it out and pulled it off with such a small quantity of wine.I’ve been lucky to try them side by side a few times. Maybe he will do it again some day.

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

personally preferred the filtered version. I think that was the consensus. Was expecting it the other way around