I was pleased to discover while reading my latest wine book, Secrets of the Sommeliers, that this wine is made by a sommelier and his wines were listed in the book- which is written by a quite famous sommelier. For some reason, after reading the book, I really trust his judgement. So much so that I made reservations for later this month at the restaurant he owns with Michael Mina in San Francisco. After I try a wine from his hand picked list we’ll see if I’m still in agreement!

But, back to this syrah. Its pretty young for a red wine, so I poured it through my Vinturi first to make sure it was nice and aerated. It was a dark purplish color with ruby edges. On the nose it was spicy, and smelled strongly like pepper. I also found a hint of anise.

It tasted very peppery as well, and not very fruity, although I believe that’s pretty typical of syrah. The wine is actually 95% syrah and 5% viognier, which is a white wine. I thought I could sense it in the wine. Viognier is a very distinctive wine, aromatic and flavorful. I also tasted a hint of wood in the wine. At first Myles and I didn’t love it, but the more I sipped, the better it got.

One of the things the book said about sommeliers is that they don’t like the big, powerful wines that often get high scores from wine critics. They tend to be too bold and high in alcohol. Wines like that go terribly with food. And what more is their job than to help choose wine to drink with food? Therefore, when they make wine themselves they strive to make lower alcohol wines that go well with food. I saved much of my glass to drink with dinner. We were having homemade macaroni and cheese that night, which actually turned out to be a great match!

The Score: ★ ★ ★½