Wine Camp: Dover Canyon Syrah is "Big, Brawny and Delicious"

Craig Camp, author of the Wine Camp blog and a wine writer whom I greatly admire, has just reviewed our 2004 Dover Canyon Syrah, Jimmy's Vineyard.  Craig lived in Europe and covered the Italian wine scene in his well-regarded online publication, VinoCibo.  Craig was also named as one of the top wine blog authors by Food and Wine Magazine.

"Big wines are not my favorites, but sometimes they just seem to work. Such a wine is the richly seductive 2004 Dover Canyon Winery Syrah, Jimmy’s Vineyard, Paso Robles. I expected only my palate to be blown away, but it was me that was blown away instead. This wine is just concentrated delicious.

Make no mistake, this is a big wine for big food, but at the same time it maintains its balance perfectly as it is structured more on its acids than its alcohol. Sure it is loaded with big forward fruit, but what beautiful fruit it is - no simple fruit bomb here. While there is plenty of cassis throughout this wine, it is not the simple sweet cheap liqueur flavors you usually find in California syrah, but an electric, thoroughly bittersweet cassis essence that has the biting bitter sweetness of real black currants.

I matched this big beauty with a prime ribeye, well crusted with coarsely ground tellicherry peppercorns, grilled rare and served drizzled with black truffle olive oil. A drop or bite was not left.

Wines like this transcend personal preferences. They are so distinctive and so well made that if you have any passion for wine at all you can’t help but to love them."

Comments

[The Blog Wine Cellar]

sounds delicious and the Ribeye made me want to crack open some good cab and fire up the grill!