Event

The Wine Club - Syrah

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Time: 07:00pm - 08:30pm

Type: Class

Location: The Wine Cabinet

Event Free

Once a month we gather together to explore, in a very interactive way, a small slice of the fascinating world of wine.
While there is no charge for this limited seating, we hope that you will enjoy the wines sufficiently to wish to have them in your wine cabinet!
More importantly, we hope that this short experience with very good wine will make you a lifelong wine lover and a loyal patron of The Wine Cabinet!

We begin promptly at 7:00pm.


Syrah (also known as Shiraz),  is a dark-skinned grape variety grown throughout the world and used primarily to produce red wine. DNA profiling in 1999 found Syrah to be the offspring of two obscure grapes from southeastern France, Dureza and Mondeuse blanche. Syrah should not be confused with Petite Sirah, a synonym for Durif, a cross of Syrah with Peloursin dating from 1880.

The style and flavor profile of wines made from Syrah is influenced by the climate where the grapes are grown with moderate climates (such as the northern Rhone Valley and parts of the Walla Walla AVA in Washington State) tending to produce medium to full-bodied wines with medium-plus to high levels of tannins and flavors of blackberry, mint and black pepper notes. In hot climates (such as the Barossa Valley ofAustralia), Syrah is more consistently full-bodied with softer tannin, jammier fruit and spice notes of liquorice, anise and earthy leather. In many regions the acidity and tannin levels of Syrah allows the wines produced from the grape to have favorable aging potential.

Syrah is used as a varietal and is also blended. Following several years of strong planting, Syrah was estimated in 2004 to be the world's 7th most grown grape at 142,600 hectares (352,000 acres). It can be found throughout the globe from France to New World wine regions such as Chile, South Africa, the Hawke's Bay in New Zealand, California, Washington and in several Australian wine regions such as Barossa,Coonawarra, Hunter Valley, Margaret River and McLaren Vale.