Wine as mouthwash? Yes please!– Barnard Griffin Syrah Port 2008

Nov 25 2009

I’m nervous.  I’m about to make the jump to the left of the page– to the “wine” section of the PalateBomb archives.  Always being immediately relegated into the “not wine” section on the right has left me with a constant feeling of inferiority I haven’t felt since the days of dodgeball.  It’s like the hot or not of the wine blogging world.  Now, this 2008 Syrah Port by Barnard Griffin is going to move me on over to the left for the first time.  The last thing to move me to the left had a Yale and Harvard education (supposedly), refused to use words from the English language, and choked on a pretzel once (well, only once that we know of).  I imagine this Port tastes much better.

I’ve held onto it for awhile ever since it was bestowed upon me to review.  It was a test in patience that I think I passed with flying colors.  But this Friday night, after going out with a friend fell through at the last minute, I needed something to do.  Naturally, I retired to my wine cellar and the Port stood out like an oasis in the Sahara.  Actually, it was at the foot of my bed as I went into my room to change into my cowboy pajamas.  The point’s still the same.  My patience ran out, I ripped the bottle out of the bag that had been protecting it from light for the past two months, and kept my clothes on because I felt that my outfit that day was especially wine reviewer-esque.  Even if no one was there to see me, I looked the part.  You’ll have to trust me because I refuse to take pictures of myself in the mirror or have a MySpace account– two things that go hand in hand.  Regardless, my outfit was more suitable for my big wine reviewing debut than cowboy pajamas would have been.

I took the bottle to my kitchen and was thrilled to see that I required no corkscrew, or shoe and hard building.  I only had to unscrew the top.  As I let that breathe, I considered some food to have with it.  I’m bad with decisions, so I pulled out a bit of everything.  I had some dark chocolate, some walnuts and almonds, and half of a bagel with Nutella.  I thought some fruit would go well with it as well, but it was the end of the week and the only fruit– although it’s not really a fruit either– remaining was a pomegranate.  I wanted to get to this wine; opening up a pomegranate would only keep me from it longer.  Next time.

I chose the walnuts because when I first tasted this, and it was my first Port at the time, I was told by an intelligent Port veteran that Ports taste like walnuts.  I quickly agreed, and not just out of politeness.  I honestly agreed, but afterward I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually eaten a walnut.  So I wanted to eat walnuts side by side with the wine to make sure I hadn’t simply been affected by one of the same fallacies of wine reviewing summarized in this sure-to-be controversial Wall Street Journal article which mentions that one California wine was described as “Dusty, chalky scents followed by mint, plum, tobacco and leather. Tasty cherry with smoky oak accents…” in one publication, and “promising aromas of lavender, roasted herbs, blueberries, and black currants” in another.

But sure enough, that taste is walnuts.  And the taste of walnut is much better in a wine.  I now know why I hadn’t eaten a walnut in a while.  The description provided by Barnard Griffin makes no mention of walnuts; apparently instead it’s “shadings of earth.”  I’m no marketer, but I’d prefer to call it walnut than dirt. They also say there’s cherry and plum in there.  I can taste the cherry just about as strongly as the walnut.  When sipped quickly, it goes down smoother than any red wine I’ve had.  I think the Syrah and cherry tastes blend to overpower the bitterness that usually comes with (and turns me off of) walnut, preserving only the unique and tasty meatiness of it.  When I keep the wine on my tongue for a bit– maybe that’s a strange thing to do, I wouldn’t know– it turns spicy, a completely different feeling than when I swallowed immediately.  It tasted like Listerine, if Listerine had come out with a delicious new wine flavor.  I did not swish it, but I did like achieving this spicy effect right after nibbling some of the chocolate.  Perhaps the spiciness came from the mysterious plums.  Are there spicy plums?

I have just one beef with this Port.  What’s with the bottle being so small?  Let’s make it a little bigger next year, okay?

As I’m trying more and more red wines, and finding ones that I like, this is the first one I can say I truly enjoyed.  Yes, I’ve found others I liked the taste of, but this is the first one I remember the taste of long after, just as I have long done with beers I truly enjoy.  This was an excellent introduction to Ports, and I hope it’s a gateway to many more.  Additionally, I hope the others know that the bar has been set high by Barnard Griffin.

Now that I’m done with my first review, I just have one question for next time.  Is there any sort of rule against reviewing the same wine twice?