Last week, the Short Cellar was devoted to Nouveau Beaujolais, the lightest and most effervescent of red wines. This week, we’ll look at its diametrical opposite: the rich, brooding grape, Syrah. Nouveau Beaujolais recollects warm summer days, but Syrah girds us for winter. A hefty wine, it is ideal accompaniment to the roasts, baked pastas or stews that make cold nights worthwhile.
Syrah is also known as Shiraz. “Syrah” is used in France and “Shiraz” is primarily an Australian term. Biologically, Syrah and Shiraz are the same grape, but philosophically, they are worlds apart. In fact, you can tell a lot about a wine from Canada, the U.S.A, Chile or South Africa depending on whether it’s marketed as a Shiraz or Syrah.
In Australia, winemakers use Shiraz as a sponge to absorb the hot growing season. The resulting wine is fruity and dense. In France (especially the Northern Rhone Valley), Syrah is primarily seen as a cold-weather grape that expresses the flavour of the rugged terrain (the “terroir”). The French style is not as ripe or fruit-heavy, but is instead imbued with flavours of dried herbs, espresso, and even some meaty hints of smoked bacon or olive tapenade.
The Australian Shiraz gets a bad rap from many wine critics because at its worst, it can taste like cotton candy fermented under a radiator. But at its best, it is among the richest and most powerful of wines in the world. However, these top-quality Shirazes are usually pretty pricy.
Happily, the LCBO just received a large shipment of truly excellent Australian-style Shiraz, the Arrowood Beau Melange Syrah 2002 ($29.95 [Ed. note: No longer available], Vintages #64550). The first thing to notice about this California wine is that it masquerades as a Syrah, when it is in fact as Shirazzy as they come: massive, powerful and ripe.
Thirty dollars may seem expensive, but the Arrowood is an ideal Christmas present or special occasion wine. It offers some outstanding advantages. First of all, the nose is utterly breathtaking. Your money is also buying you a very rare level of density and intensity, what wine critics call “extraction”. This makes the palate unctuous and bursting with complexity: plums, cinnamon, caramel. It’s also just the right age: six years in the bottle have integrated all the flavours into one another, making it smooth and rich.
My one caveat is that the Arrowood Beau Melange Syrah is not for those who love their wines light and graceful. I almost found it too powerful, and I had a leg of lamb as a chaser. But I suppose that’s what you want in the winter: a wine with traction.
Matthew Sullivan is a civil litigator in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca