this heaven gives me migraine

2001 K Vintners "Milbrandt" Syrah

I am not dead. After two months of sickness, sinus, and ear infections, three rounds of antibiotics, a few false thoughts of being better, a round of steroids, and a trip to Washington, DC, I am alive (although with a lingering eustachian tube problem, I suspect). Alive is good, because I have been missing wine. In between some of the antibiotics (what was that? late September? mid-October? It seems forever ago) I had an uninspiring bottle of Sangiovese, an eh glass of Cabernet, and a really-not-bad-but-it-was-my-birthday-and-I-didn't-take-notes bottle of Zinfandel, but nothing worth talking about, and really, I was mostly feeling too crappy to do anything but try to sleep and take a lot of pills. And I wasn't sure if my lack of excitement about the wine was my sickness or the fact that the wine really was not interesting, or both.

I also missed Wine Blogging Wednesday 14 AND Wine Blogging Wednesday #15, both which sounded fun and I am sad to have missed out.

Anyway, I tried to make up for everything once I got to DC and was free of antibiotics and weaning myself off steroids (since they bludgeon you with steroids and then slowly reduce the amount over a period of days). We started the week off with the K Vintners "Milbrandt", a wine I dragged out there with me. (Dear K Vintners, what's up with the October shipments? I am guessing they are late? Don't forget about me!)

This is Syrah from the Wahluke Slope sub-region of the Columbia Valley in Washington state (an area that is predicted to get its own AVA designation soon). It's one of the warmer grape-growing areas and I guess there is a lot of apple tree land being turned over to grapes up there (something also happening in Anderson Valley in California right now-- often that is not looked upon with excitement by the locals, as I learned when I was up in Anderson Valley in early September and heard a lot of bitter rumblings about the wineries).

Notes: This is an inky purple-red in the glass, and looks fairly young still (not that it is very old). It has a nose of violets, old chairs, smoke, tar, earth, and, even though I was told this was totally not correct and if I smelled them ever I would recant my description, raccoons. I think there was a tiny gamey element that made me think "raccoon" even though it was not overwhelmingly gamey. The smoke/tar/earth element was most prevalent. The tannins were pretty soft and the finish was pretty fatty and round, leaving a tarry element behind. I thought it was delicious, although not as good as the near-perfect "The Boy".

Cost: $28

Overall: B+. I would love to have a case or two around, but it is definitely a wine made for some big food (or cigars), because it is a bruiser.

2002 Qupé Central Coast Syrah

Region: Central Coast, California, US

Composition: 86% Syrah, 6% Grenache, 4% Counoise, 3% Mourvdre, 1% Cinsault

Background: Qupé is Bob Lindquist's "stone age winery" and his effort to bring people good wine at a price they can afford. The Central Coast Syrah is a blend of grapes sourced from eleven different vineyards (including Bien Nacido, Rancho Arroyo Grande, and other vineyards from which Qupé makes single-vineyard-designation wines) in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The lots from each vineyard are fermented by themselves, and then blended together in stages as Lindquist makes the single-vineyard wine picks. The wine is aged for about a year in mostly neutral French barrels (and a tiny bit of new oak), before the 14,000-odd cases are bottled.

How can this wine be labeled "Syrah" with all that other stuff in there? Well, California law requires that only 75 percent of a wine need be labeled varietal in order to call the wine that. Since this wine has 86 percent Syrah in it, it can be called Syrah on the label. The same goes for anything with a county label (Santa Barbara County, Sonoma County, etc) on it: 75 percent of the grapes must be from that county, but up to 25 percent can come from somewhere else. Things get more strict if a wine claims it is from a specific American Viticultural Area (such as Dry Creek, Rockpile, etc): in that case, 85 percent of the grapes must be from that AVA. And if you claim a vineyard designation on the label; well, 95 percent of the grapes must be from that vineyard.

Notes: Really dark ruby in the glass. Slightly hot nose of spice (thyme, rosemary, something almost sprucey... cedar?) and blackberry/raspberry/licorice. A fair amount of that fruit and some earthy forest floor flavors are on the palate along with some very soft tannins and nice acids, all finished with a warm, pleasant, peppery finish. It's not the world's most complicated wine, but is enjoyable and very drinkable.

Cost: $15

Overall: B

2003 Holus-Bolus Syrah

This is my entry for Wine Blogging Wednesday 5, wherein Pim challenged folks to drink up and write up a wine with an unusual name. Before making my final decision I looked around and passed over Orin Swift's The Prisoner, K Vintners' The Beautiful, Owen Roe's Sinister Hand, and D'Arenberg's The Dead Arm (I am not touching that bottle for a long time). The other day, for a very short while, I regretted (in theory, since it actually sounds like a wine I would hate) not tracking down a chardonnay called Mad Housewife. And I passed up The Ball Buster because, even though it easily beats out names like Defendant and The Last Ditch, it just seemed too easy and god knows I like to make things difficult for myself. So I ended up with the 2003 Holus-Bolus Syrah. Maybe the wine itself doesn't have a strange name, since it is their only wine and just called the varietal, but Holus-Bolus is wacky enough in my book.

Region: Santa Ynez Valley, California, US

Composition: 100% Syrah, I assume, although I am not totally sure.

Background: I knew nothing about this when I got it last summer, and was completely a victim of packaging since I picked it up because of the name and label. I mean, it's an octopus! And a very mysterious one at that. Anyway, it sat around for a few months, and then I decided to get it out for Wine Blogging Wednesday. When I first bought it I could find nothing out about it, but I was able to dig up some information on it, which I will relay in a moment. First, let's look at the phrase "holus-bolus":

holus bolus - (definition from moby-thesaurus)
a corps perdu, carelessly, desperately, furiously, happen what may,
hastily, head over heels, headfirst, headforemost, headlong,
heedlessly, heels over head, helter-skelter, hotheadedly,
hurriedly, hurry-scurry, impetuously, like crazy, like mad, madly,
overeagerly, overenthusiastically, overzealously, precipitantly,
precipitately, precipitously, ramble-scramble, recklessly,
slam-bang, slap-bang, slapdash, wantonly, wildly

As suggested by the words above, this wine is a collaboration between four winemaker-friends: Peter Hunken (of Stolpman), Jim Knight (Jelly Roll), Chad Melville (Melville, Samsara), and Sashi Moorman (Red Car, Stolpman). This is their first release as such, and they made 225 cases of it in an industrial rental until in Lompoc they refer to as "the wine ghetto". The octopus on the label represents the eight hands involved in the making of the wine.

Notes: In the glass this is dark, opaque, and practically purple. We decanted it for a short time and after that it had tar, blackberry/raspberry, black tea, and a little bit of geranium on the nose, and I could tell it was still a little closed. In the mouth this wine is positively enormous. There is a lot of black fruit and a lot of tannin, echoing the nose, and the finish was full of earth, coffee, spice and a little hint of rose.

Then it sat around while we ate and such, and it started to open up and soften more. After about three hours in the decanter/glass, it has more fruit showing on the nose and the whole wine is integrating more. Overall, if you are looking for a huge fruit-driven wine that has some nice structure to it, this wine is for you. I would give it some more time in the bottle, though. I think I opened this one a little too early, even though I enjoyed it.

I can find no other mentions of this wine online (other than places selling it) other than an old Lazy Acres newsletter and some info over at Punt Wines. I am looking forward to other efforts these guys make, though.

Cost: I got this at Amphora Wine Merchant (now Arlequin) for about $24.

Overall: A