Flibbertigibbet

Tonight's Vintage: Routas Syrah 2000

I just opened a new bottle of wine to carry me through the rest of the week:

My wine encyclopedia says of the Syrah grape:

Syrah: A variety whose name, derived from Shiraz, the capital of Fars, a province of Iran, causes most people to believe that the vine must have originated in Persia, possibly as far back as 600 BC. In Hermitage, in the northern Rhone, the grape makes big, rich, tannic wines with a good deal of fruit.

I chose this bottle because of the pretty purple lable. I also knew that Syrah is the same as Shiraz but for locale and I've really enjoyed Shiraz in the past. There's also the cute subtitle, Cyrano, that I found charming. How nice to drink Freedom Wine!

The lable reads:

Cyrano de Bergerac was famous for his nose and for his passions. Syrah is a dark and fragrant grape that is also famous for its nose, and for the passions that it inspires when accompanied by flavorful and spicy foods. Cyrano is made entirely from particularly rich Syrah grown in the heart of Provence. It can be a serious pre-dinner drink but it is even better with steak or chicken cooked in a wine sauce.

I'm having Broccoli and Steak Skillet Sensations.

Since I just opened the bottle, I now take pause to inspect it. The color is indeed dark. It's more brown that the malbec I had this weekend. It's oddly not very fragrant.

My first sip is woefully underwhelming. I've had terrible wines before and this doesn't count as one of them. Initially, I taste nothing. I swish it around and I can pick up a taste that reminds me of spice and a background flavor of berry, which is why I've always liked Shiraz. It is definitely "tannic" meaning it makes me pucker; my oral epithelium feels raw as the wine passes.

pucker... oral epithelium... ummm... moving along...

All in all I am not terribly impressed with this one. I expected a bigger taste to it but I also suspect that my disappointment lies in the fact that this is a freshly opened bottle. I'm usually more impressed once it's had a chance to sit for a little bit in the air.

I'm now on my fifth sip and it is definitely improving...