About this WINE
Syrah/Shiraz
A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.
It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.
South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.
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Description
Yves Cuilleron has long been seen as the leader of Condrieu's new generation of winemakers, but in fact makes as much red as white wine and has an equally impressive reputation for this holdings in Côte Rôtie and St Joseph and his mastery of the sometimes rather chimerical Syrah grape. That this mastery was centred on the use of oak, in the early days at least, did little to undermine the plaudits, although now that there is more moderation in the size and age of the barrels, the plaudits have, if anything, become louder and even more effusive.
Les Serines is Yves’ top St Joseph, from old south-east facing vines around the Chavanay and Mauves communes behind the town of Tournon, which is itself located across the river from Tain L’Hermitage. Les Serines is not a lieu-dit, rather an old synonym for Syrah. The wines are farmed at a high density, then picked by hand and fermented in stainless steel, after which they are aged for eighteen months in cask, with no new wood employed.
This is a robust, finely structured wine, with firm mineral acidity cutting through the granitic blocks of black fruit, and a very pure finish in deference to the quality of the terroir.
(Simon Field MW, BBR Buyer)
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