This is an odd wine. An extremely flowery, candied nose to it, muddled with black cherry and earthy briar, but that’s all down deep under an effusively sweet bouquet. Nearly opaque–obvious turbidity in a dark-ruby glass. Generous air displays far more saline, saliva, and pickling-spice complexity, but the shrill dessert note plays long and hard.

Tasting it levels the playing field a bit, but the shrillness of acidity causes odd balance-issues with a mouth-feel feeling rather sweet and fruited a bit too cheerily. The middle pounds bitter, harsh tannins into a peppery stew, background ripeness again going sweet, albeit while packing green-berry and firm apricot into complaining receptors. Really torn on this one–it just doesn’t *feel* like Syrah. Maybe Lagrein or Teroldego–something having classic trouble maintaining balance between barely-sunny fruit and ridiculous concentration and tartness. The finish is all tannin: fruit barely able to keep up–but still there–and what fruit there IS feels–again–a little too cheery. An off bottle? Or in a *dumb* spot? This will be extremely interesting to taste in 5 years. Will it resolve its current issues? It could very well be the world’s longest-aging Syrah–or it could be a fruitless muss. Tough to call. I just don’t like the version of *fruit* presented here today. Acerbic and sweet, thin in places it shouldn’t be and overwhelmed with mightily uncooperative structure in others. You’ve never had a Rhone from Paso like this. This un-checks ALL the boxes. But not in a particularly nice way. Time will tell.

2018 DUBOST Syrah Adelaida District Paso Robles 14.5

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