Winemaker Notes
Recommended pairings include lamb or herb-based sauces.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Merino Syrah is co-fermented with 5% Viognier. The free-run wine is matured in oak barrels and the press wine was kept in stainless steel, and blended in a 50/50 proportion after some ten months. The nose is classical cool climate Syrah with smoky bacon, violets, hints of black olives and a notion of tar, very consistent with what I tasted last year. The palate shows fine tannins and some chalky minerality, a texture more than a flavor. Good length and freshness. Very Rhône-ish.
-
Wine & Spirits
A core of brilliant red fruit opens up to a wider range of flower and earth scents in this wine, the texture smooth yet firm enough to get a grip on a steak. It will benefit from a few more years in bottle to gain in complexity. This comes from stony soils on the banks of the Limarí river, 250 miles north of Santiago.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Part of the Coquimbo region and a key location for pisco production, the Limari Valley is one of the northern most wine producing regions of Chile. The other two, also part of Coquimbo, are the Elqui and less-developed Choapa Valleys. While more vineyard area is dedicated to pisco production (via the grapes of Muscat of Alexandria, Pedro Jimenez, Moscatel de Asturia and Torontel), the acreage under vine for still wine production has increased. The intense sunlight in the Limari Valley, coupled with little rainfall as well as the cooling effect of the Humboldt Current from the Pacifc Ocean, all make the area ideal for cool climate grapes like Chardonnay and Pinot noir.