Synopsis, Our Opinion: Exhilarating Syrah that was a real treat.
Producer/Winery: Sashi Moorman; Piedrassi; Lompoc Wine Ghetto; Lompoc, California.
Grape Variety: Syrah.
Geographic Appellation,, Region, Country: Santa Maria Valley; Central Coast, California.
Vintage: 2015
Price: $83.00 (with a Rajat Parr club membership)
Purchased From: The Rajat Parr Wine Club; Lompoc, California.
Paired With: Pan seared lamb with Madeira sauce, Anna potatoes and green beans.
Tasting:
-
Opened one hour before drinking. Clear, purple/red color with a lighter purple rim. Strong aromas of damp earth, blackberry, black olives and tobacco smoke. Smooth entry, plush, lively, unpretentious and extroverted mouthfeel, the light side of a full body and a 150-grit texture. Prominent tart blackberry, current, raspberry and tobacco flavors. Plenty of bright acidity, very fine grain tannins and a long mouth filling spicy finish. WOW a wonderful surprise…bold with Old World refinement, vigorously fruit-forward and succulent Syrah. A hand-and-glove pairing with the strong flavored lamb, but excellent sipping after the dinner. Exhilarating Syrah that was a real treat.
Note: We opened two bottles of Syrah for a comparison tasting with this dinner. These included this wine and the Louis Barruol/Kermit Lynch Tiercerolles Syrah 2016. Raj Parr in his book Secrets of the Sommeliers makes the point that you need to know how wines from the “classic” Old World regions taste so you have a reference for all the others. So we gave it the acid test…a side-by-side blind tasting of a “classic” Crozes Hermitage Syrah and the wine we reviewed above. What did we think, well in a nutshell they were both OUTSTANDING, but there were big differences. We had no trouble identifying the New World wine that had more body, more fruit flavor and a longer tasting finish, but not all the captivating subtleties of the Old World wine. However, the Piedrasassi had an Old World character and drinking it alone would have made it much more difficult to identify its origin.
Photo from Piedrasassi.
See also: our review of another Piedrassi wine.
Alcohol Content: 13%
Closure: Natural cork.
UPC Code: Not available.
Imported by: Not applicable.