Bright ruby with florescent pink edges. Stemmy, briary, grandma-perfume and linen-closet baby-powder nose matches the explosion of tight, beautiful fruit at once see-sawing between deep-kitchen cherry reduction and sunny strawberry-patch. Match head and rust, diesel and dust, horse manure and sawdust, peanut butter and jelly, watermelon and collard greens, apple pie and fireworks, guns and beer, mud and puddles, whiskers on kittens and warm woolen mittens: ALL of your favorite combinations are represented here in a fun little wine–cheap and easy and guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Really, I’m serious: There’s an ethereal, hard-to-explain gut-feeling you get when you drink wines like this that just plain makes you happy. I get this feeling almost every time I tip a St. Joseph. Not happy and un-assuming like rosé, no no, deep dark brooding happiness you get when you smell a wine so rife in floral and perfume and cassis and cellar-floor and wholesome Euro funk and then taste it and the electric acid drives the nubile fruit deep into your soul and the visceral tannins grab at you Pirates Of The Caribbean-like, but in the end it is all harmless fun. Callifornia producers are judged so harshly when they make Syrahs like this–and it’s sad. In California you must stand a fork up in Syrah and 14-oh is considered low. Well, thank Dog there is French wines to fill this void. Kermit Lynch never falters in bringing viable wines to the table and this is definitely a winner.
2014 DOMAINE FAURY St. Joseph France Kermit Lynch 13.0
Stephen McConnell 