Ramey Wine Cellars – 2014 – Syrah – Sonoma Coast
Laid-back Syrah… Just what I needed after a long day. Light, foggy, coastal fruit with that flirtatious ghostly edge. Something you need to just speak to you with light blueberry and caramel carousels. I sipped and just thought about the day, honestly, and I have this wine to credit for that. One of the few times where the wine made me forget about the wine– It ORDERED me to forget, just resign myself to the Now I was in. I heard the bottle’s dialogue sing and speak to me through light but convincing texture. It’s a song, a saunter, charm and atmosphere to itself. There was something there in that bottle, in that translation of Syrah, that calculated my consciousness and flew past and around my rationale with unusually understated but poignant dynamism and capability. After three sips I noticed a cherry-like subtle smatter but then it away skipped like a coquettishly phantasmic vixen. I kept sipping. I was done with my day and more relaxed than I could have measured.
Easy-going Merlot with that jazz that I look for in any wine. And it’s not the Merlot type that so many self-sworn “experts” just want to write away with disgruntled barbs and obnoxious dismissal. This bottle shows rounded and eclectic palate presence with an unusually convincing fruit structure entailing cherry, blueberry, a little strawberry and mint-chocolate. Soft grip and a tremolo’d finish that’ll carry you to the next sip. Not what people think of, or what they’re told to think of (what I find happens most often), when Merlot comes up in discussion or is poured at the table. This wine shows speed and swagger, sense and syllabic sensibility. Its own language and sound form. One of those Coltrane solos that you replay over and over while driving down Highway 1, window down, where you smell the ocean, where the ocean talks to you through phantasmic breezy shoves. After about 40 or so minutes open inviting oxygen down through neck, she starts to narrate what Sonoma is entirely about— elegant approachability. No vanity, only a story and conversation through Bordeaux’s always shoved cast member. It’s relaxed disposition is just what makes it un tel amour.
restaurant while out to dinner. I didn’t know what to expect but I was irrevocably riveted by all sensory approaches, the paradiddles that sang to the palate… vanilla and orange, lemon and banana, pineapple. This was not a wine that was trying to be safe, or mainstream. It wanted to be honest with its narrative, tell a new turn in Vermentino’s volume and place, character and voice. I kept sipping till dinner, nearly ordered another glass but had to refrain. Been haunted ever since. Wish I would have had just one more glass. What I remember most was the texture of the wine and how it so luminously complimented the flavor complexion. Maybe now I will hunt this varietal, but I’m fearful. How could any other interpretation have this magnetic degree? I don’t want to obsess over that, just want to remember what I tasted, how it taught me something about Vermentino and myself as a wine pursuer. Easily one of the most pedagogical and enveloping white wines I’ve ever encountered. And I have to laugh, as it just found its way to my life, my story, my writing. You can never know what to expect in this wine stage, and Via Giusti’s enigmatically ethereal bottle reminded me of just that. I left the restaurant more than enamored. I was in longing, curious, writing in my head what I’d do if I had a bottle when back home.
