This could, quite possibly, be the world’s most perfect Central Coast Syrah. I have never smelled and tasted something so literally PERFECT in all aspects. Yes, I realize it is a third Grenache. But it is not the boring GSM concoctions so popular in Paso, NEITHER is it a Santa Barbara County Syrah with edges awry–nothing singularly terrible about them, I adore many, but–this. THIS. This manages a near-surreal perfection in balance and depth.
It starts with the bouquet. Lush and fragrant, deep velvety floral massaging crazy cassis and maraschino into dense blackberry and the kind of sexy, sweaty funk just tip-toeing around that sweet-spot where the 99 look the other way and the 1% get interested. The stemminess runs down perfect Caltrans median maintenance frosty drift, the weedy dark and alive but not pointedly green. Chocolate and vanilla roil through the entire thing, but nothing where you start to wonder about overt luxuriousness of barrel-programme. Cherry so brilliant–even at 10–it all coming from a dark, not perfectly clear, grainy black ruby, solid right out to a razor edge. If there is a hint of Grenache garnet in the color, it barely registers on the brick-meter.
You can’t wait to get this thing in your mouth. And nothing changes. Onward and upward is the M.O. of this wine, and the entry deposits disgusting cherry on your face as your tongue slowly unwraps it from its glorious acidic Christmas paper. Cool and calm over the middle, still-bright and lying about its age. Bitter, wet-oak tannin bring all the black tea, black walnut, and black India into a full circle with the nose.
I’m nearly speechless about this wine. Easily one of my happiest rescues from a retail shelf in long memory. There’s a few more of them there, and I will probably clean them out tomorrow, because THIS is a wine I want to taste in 2030. Jesus Christ, Klapper, WTF????
2010 LA FENETRE ‘La Paire’ SY/GR 63/37 Bien Nacido Z Block/Starr Ranch Central Coast California 14.3
Stephen McConnell 