TN: Syrah Blind Taste-off: 2012 Rhone vs. 2013 California with photos

WINE TALK
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The shirt does not showcase the guns, so fashion fail.

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I tried to get Frank to send me his cell number, not his landline, so I could text during the tasting. I think he feared what else I might send.

The wine was killer. Even on the second night, last night.

[cheers.gif]

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I have his number [whistle.gif]

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Perhaps, then, the perfect scenario is to tear off the sleeves and give them to Viet - his arms are shorter so he can convert them easily to French cuffs, then I will showcase.

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Thanks to Frank and Jill for opening their home to us. Thanks to those that “sourced” the wines and those that brought extra wines for us to enjoy. Finally, thanks also to Rhys, Ojai, Drew and Halcon for contributing wines to the event.

Disclaimer: I’m a newbie to Syrah, with limited experience with California Syrah and only had a handful of Northern Rhone wines. Most of my experience comes from reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and reading the forums so YMMV. This tasting was one of the most fun and interesting flights of wines I’ve ever had. I really appreciated the blind tasting format and the chance to discover and learn about these wines without label bias.

My approach to selecting CA vs NR for my sheet came with the bias that CA = fruit and NR = savory. I know this was incorrect. I’ve had cool climate Syrah from Copain, Rhys and Arnot-Roberts which do not follow that premise, but I wanted to be consistent with my reasoning for the sheet. Additionally, I don’t feel like I have enough experience to properly rank the wines. My approach for ranking was to prioritize interesting/distinctive wines. I looked for wines that had the best/long lasting finish with tannins that spoke of “quality” to me. It was much easier to rank within flight and much harder to integrate the rankings at the end between the three flights.

TLDR version: it was an awesome night of wine. My top four in rankings were all very complex and some of the most interesting wines I’ve ever had. The next tier in rankings were also very enjoyable. Unfortunately, last two wines in my rankings were the only ones that didn’t show as well for me (besides the flawed wine).


-------------------- FLIGHT ONE --------------------

2012 Clusel-Roch Côte-Rôtie La Viallière - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie:
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 3 of 4 for the flight and overall 10th place, group rank 5th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Red fruited, light pepper, fair acidity, some barnyard. It was a solid wine which was drinking well, but it was not as exciting to me compared to the other wines. I guessed CA but in hindsight should have voted FR due to the light barnyard flavor that I noted.

2013 Rhys Syrah Horseshoe Vineyard - USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains:
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 1 of 4 for the first flight and overall 3rd place, group rank 7th place. Decanted 8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Purple fruit, pepper (underlined twice), violets, strong tannins that taste of high quality. I thought this wine tasted like a 2015 Vincent Paris Cornas 60 that I recently had and guessed French. Cool climate CA makes sense to me. I felt strongly that this wine stood out in the first flight.

2013 Drew Family Cellars Syrah Valenti Vineyard - USA, California, North Coast, Mendocino Ridge
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 4 of 4 for the first flight, and overall 11th place, group rank 10th place. Decanted 8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Red fruited, light floral, some coffee grounds. The flavors didn’t seem as expressive and the finish felt a little thin to me.

2013 Wind Gap Wines Syrah Armagh Vineyard - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. Decanted 8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. NR (flawed). From the nose I smelled strong earth/mushroom. I didn’t get a chance to taste yet but when others noted the TCA the “wet cardboard” was more obvious.

2012 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave St. Joseph - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, St. Joseph
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 2 of 4 for the first flight, overall 6th place, group rank 2nd place. As opposed to all the other wines in the event, this bottle was pulled in the moment and dumped to the decanter and served immediately. I had dark red fruit (fruit underlined twice), savory notes, and then tannin underlined once. I enjoyed this one, but had mixed feelings about ranking because I wanted to stay consistent to ranking the wines I felt were more interesting higher. The group had an interesting discussion regarding splash decant and drinking right away vs how wines can open and close throughout aeration when they are young as these wines were.

-------------------- FLIGHT TWO (My favorite flight of the night) --------------------

2012 Domaine Jamet Côte-Rôtie - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 2 of 4 for the second flight, overall 4th place, group rank 4th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Purple fruited, pepper, florals. I wrote nice texture and clean tannin, which I thought indicates good quality.

2013 Halcon Vineyards Syrah Alturas - USA, California, North Coast, Yorkville Highlands
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 2 of 4 for the second flight, overall 5th place, group rank 6th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Blood, interesting, pepper, orange peel. Good tannins. After the reveal I noted this was the best QPR of the night for me.

2012 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 1 of 4 for the second flight, overall 1st place, group rank 1st place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. This wine had the most interesting and distinctive flavors of the night. I got a lot of smoke, tobacco, tar, pepper, complex, fun. I think this wine is perfect for someone who’s into cigars. Dark and dense fruit flavors but light on it’s feet. In hind sight, I can see why this wine would be very divisive depending on preference of the taster.

2013 Copain Syrah Hawks Butte Vineyard - USA, California, North Coast, Yorkville Highlands
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 4 of 4 of the second flight, overall 12th place, group rank 11th place. Decanted 8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. I felt the wine had a closed nose especially coming after the Levet which was exuding lots of aroma. Red fruit, more in the cranberry spectrum compared to the rest of the wines. Finish felt a little thin to me.

-------------------- FLIGHT THREE --------------------

2012 Guillaume Gilles Cornas - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 4 of 4 for the third flight, overall 9th place, group rank 12th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. I had a generic note of fruit, pepper, tannins here, but noted that the wine was solid even though I wasn’t enthusiastic about it. When others noted that it may be flawed, I tasted again but did not note the typical TCA flavors. I did feel like there was some brett in there though.

2012 Thierry Allemand Cornas Chaillot - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 2 of 4 for the third flight, overall 8th place, group rank 8th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Red fruited, savory, hard tannins. I enjoyed this wine, but I felt like I was much more excited about the second flight wines in comparison.

2012 Marie et Pierre Bénetière Côte-Rôtie Cordeloux - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 1 of 4 for the third flight, overall 2th place, group rank 2nd place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. Dark red fruit, soy sauce, mushroom, tobacco, good quality/mouth drying tannin. The umami components and finish of this wine made it stand out. I really enjoyed this wine.

2013 Ojai Syrah Sebastiano Vineyard Santa Barbara County - USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Barbara County
Poured blind, as part of our '12 Rhone vs. '13 Calif syrah event. My rank 4 of 4 for the third flight, overall 7th place, group rank 9th place. Decanted 6-8 hours before event, then returned to bottle. I think this wine suffered by coming after the Benetiere. It didn’t have as much complexity and felt more straight forward with dense fruit.

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It would be a brag if I got better than 50% correct on my CA vs FR picks. A dart throwing chimp could do as well :wink:

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Thank you all for the notes, results and photos. Hated to miss this one, especially on a night Todd was issued a rare hall pass.

I’m not surprised about the Halcon. Every bottle I’ve tried over the past few years from the 2009/2010 vintages has been excellent. CA fruit with a Rhone sensibility.

Paul, are you still making the commute form East/South Bay to the vineyard?

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Awesome tasting you all had! Love the write up, notes, and comments as well as the wine choices…Blind tastings let it all hang out!
[cheers.gif]

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Conceptually, I think this is where blind tasting adds the most value. Tasting wines from one region and/or one variety, learning the different expressions of the variety and/or place, finding ones that suit you better.

I don’t mind the “this could be any wine from anywhere” type of blind tasting, but it’s more of a parlor game and less wine educational, to me.

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Andrew

Yes still commuting most weekends to vineyard. We are starting the transition to Mendo next year. Plan to be full-time by 2019 pruning (end of Feb).

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Great stuff. Jealous. Sorry to miss this one.

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Cool read, love the various takes on the wines. I think Paul may have chosen 2012 Rhones because it was a warmer, riper year, so closer to the California wines. Would be interesting ( and maybe easier) to do the same tasting again with all 13s.

Oh, will trade Levet for pretty much anything :wink:

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Alan

Yes Frank wanted to focus on a single vintage so I suggested 2012. I thought a little riper than 2013 and a better match for CA. Plus the extra year in bottle would go some way to addressing the concern that French wines need more time. We also found sourcing '12 N.Rhone a little easier than '13s.

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Great tasting and very helpful! Blind tasting is the way to go and we all realize how little we actually know!


Cheers!
Marshall [berserker.gif]

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I opened another bottle of the 13 Drew Valenti to have over the next few nights, gonna get after a glass of that before dinner tonight. I also have bought some Halcon that is coming tomorrow, which I am going to revisit. Neither of these will be blind this time, but I’ll be able to taste the wines singly, with some quiet contemplation time.

I’ll bring back some updated TNs once I have them for y’all.

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Here is my new TN on the Drew, which I am continuing to enjoy tonight. I’m not convinced I like it as much as I did two weeks ago, but let’s remember that there was a different context for that event, and the amount of wines, the setting, the food, it all impacts the narrative. In addition, drinking something singly, as I am the Drew this time, allows me to better appreciate it. It also reminds me that whatever we see about TNs, including my own, posted by all of us, and the critics, is always contextually based. We don’t always know that context, yet I try in my own way to put it in all of my notes so that the reader knows the how, when and where, to give some color to the narrative.

  • 2013 Drew Family Cellars Syrah Valenti Vineyard - USA, California, North Coast, Mendocino Ridge (11/14/2017)
    This bottle follows the one from about 2 weeks ago. Some differences exist in setting and context that are worth noting. To begin, the previous bottle was decanted 8 hours before we drank it. And, that wine was served blind, as part of a 12 wine, 3 flight event. For tonight’s bottle, I opened 2 hours ago, and only slow oxed it. This bottle is not blind and it’s the only wine in front of me. Having cleared that up, what’s here? Well, the bottle last time was one of my Top 3 of that evening, in part due to the aromatics. Once again here, same imprint of ground black pepper, very distinct and lovely–it’s bold and present. The fruit on this tonight shows a few clear markers. First, juicy and plump in weight, which then proceeds into a boysen/cranberry quality that carries a tartness, too. Light to moderate structure, mainly a berry skin/tannin kind of grip that simply tugs a bit in the finish…re-tasting the following day, same conditions as yesterday. The black pepper remains distinct, the purple/red fruit remains tart and there is black olive note that comes through, along with some licorice in the finish. Overall, this is a juicy, moderately savory wine with plenty of acidity. It’s a style I appreciate for syrah, in balance to more opulent, darker syrahs that I also enjoy (think Carlisle Papa’s).

Posted from CellarTracker

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Got an update I wanted to share. Been working through a bottle of the '13 Halcon Alturas the past few days, wanted to drop a note back to revisit the work we did last month. I appreciate Paul’s inspiration to craft a wine in this style, and do it at a price of around $30. So, for someone who wants to explore a CA syrah that is inspired by an old world, Rhone approach, this is a good one to give a go.

  • 2013 Halcon Vineyards Syrah Alturas - USA, California, North Coast, Yorkville Highlands (12/16/2017)
    This bottle follows the one from 5 weeks ago, which was part of our Rhone vs. CA syrah event. In that event, I had this wine blind, which for me is regularly humbling and a necessary ego reset: when I think I know something, blind reminds me there is always more to learn. For the bottle today, it was opened 48 hours ago and I have been working through it a glass or so each day, with today being the final day. No other wines to share with it this time, I’m drinking it without food. The aromatics on this are reminiscent of a recent 2005 Pax Castelli-Knight syrah. That wine and this Halcon show the mix of bloody/lightly stemmy/dried flower aromatics, as style I enjoy very much. Classic Rhone notes of cooked meat, rosemary/garrigue, with tangy red and black fruit that has a plumpish quality. There is some noticeable astringence in this bottle, which is far different than the bottle/TN that I posted on last month. The acidity on this is prominent too, a citrusy quality, spicy and fresh. My final thought on this is to let the wine age, to give it the opportunity to soften some and integrate the raw material that is here. I do see now what Paul was going after when he crafted this wine, I get it now and I like the approach.

Posted from CellarTracker

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this is how u do it…my fav way to taste