The history of Syrah includes near obliteration of the grape, and travel throughout the wine growing regions of the world. As recently as the 1960’s Syrah stood out as an under privileged grape, even with it having been brought from the Northern Rhone region of France into the likes of Australia, Argentina, and California, among others.

Syrah is one of the oldest, established grape varietals, and helped develop the traditions of the Northern Rhone region. It’s origins are contested, with some claiming it was brought over from Persia as early as the 3rd century, and others saying it originated in the Rhone valley itself.

Though the juice produced from this fruit is hearty with strong tannins that do well for aging potential, the plant itself has proved vulnerable to pests, most especially the grape louse, phylloxera. The 19th century showed almost total devastation to the vineyards of Europe due to a phylloxera epidemic that spread rapidly through the fields of the continent. It is said that 2/3 to 9/10 of the grape fields of France were destroyed from this crisis.

Syrah’s vulnerability to such issues impacted growers reliance on it for producing wine. By the 1960’s the highly regarded fields of the Northern Rhone were under producing, and held little room on the international stage. In the 1970’s, however, Syrah was ‘rediscovered’ by numerous wine critics, leading to wine drinking attention returning to an investment in Syrah at a global level. Within a decade the Northern Rhone, regulated to use only Syrah for red wines, had again boomed.

Syrah was exported to multiple areas of the globe as early as the 1800s, arriving in Australia as Shiraz in the 1830s, and in Argentina in the 1880s. As a result Syrah is a grape that enjoys prominence in several major wine industries around the world, and as a blending grape in numerous others.

Louis Barruol 2009 “La Dore’e” Cote Rotie, blended and imported by Kermit Lynch

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We open a week of focusing on Syrah with a classic incarnation of it–a French Cote Rotie, the Northern Rhone Syrah-focused wine rich in tradition. This particular rendition of the Cote Rotie is blended by Louis Barruol, a wine maker known for his work in Gigondas at Chateau de Saint Cosme. Incredibly, Barruol is a fourtheenth-generation wine maker.

Barruol has also begun working with some of the best growers of the Northern Rhone, and acting as a negociant–purchasing portions of their grape production to blend into his own wines. This “La Dore’e” is just such a wine. Working closely with Kermit Lynch, Barruol has selected portions of an ancient Syrah still maintained by small production Northern Rhone growers, and produced this exquisite example of a Cote Rotie.

Cote Rotie is, of course, a regulated wine. It is one I find fascinating for its focus on a seemingly unusual combination. That is, though many Cote Rotie’s are produced as full Syrah wines, regulation allows that up to 20% of the wine can be sourced from non-Syrah grapes.

What captures my attention, however, is that it is the white grape Viognier that wine makers of a Cote Rotie may choose to blend in (that is, regulations demand only these two grapes can be blended to count as this style of wine). The result is the body of a red wine, with the scents and flavors of a delicate white dancing through it.

A good Cote Rotie will often showcase the Viognier based scents of honeysuckle or jasmine, coupled with Syrah’s tendencies towards red or black fruits, and hints of meat and smoke. The flavors in the mouth will usually follow. What a combination! I say I am fascinated by the Cote Rotie style because where else would it occur to you to expect both white floral and smokey-meat notes?

This Barruol-Lynch project offers just such a blend. Though Kermit Lynch’s wine site lists only Syrah in the wine’s technical information, there are unmistakable Viognier scents and flavors of honeysuckle and other white flowers.

I was lucky enough to drink this wine with some of my close friends. We marveled too at how the scents and flavors opened over time as we drank it slowly. While it began with tightly focused, crisp white floral scents, the wine opened into more fruit scents and meat flavors. To capture yet another surprising combination hosted within this wine–it manages to simultaneously grip your mouth with drying qualities, and yet make it water for more.

Enjoy!

Seriously. When it comes to this wine–enjoy!

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