2004 Barnard Griffin Syrah "Port"

[SushiNorth]

This fortified Syrah from Washington State's Columbia Valley tries very hard to be a port. Its deep maroon color, inky translucency and heat are right on target, but it has the distracting attribute of coating the tongue and throat in a licorice-black color. It's quite fruity, with blackberries coming on strong at first, followed by an astonishingly accurate rendition of Harry & David's chocolate covered blueberries and cherries. Unfortunately, it also comes with a slight metallic taste. There's plenty of tannin but little structure -- this wine might improve with 3 years, but certainly not 8 or 10. The body is thin with lots of the aforementioned sediment -- had it not seemed like table wine I would have decanted.

NV 4 of 10. At $12/500 ml bottle, it's fine for a party where no-one cares, especially if you can hold onto the convenient sized bottle for future use.

[SushiNorth]

Also a bit of evergreen -- more like yew than pine, as i finished off the bottle and the fruit was gone.

The best thing about this wine is the 500ml bottle, which is now stripped of the label, cleaned, and awaiting a more constructive use.

[Conky]

Interesting. It got me thinking about the English/Portuguese attempts at early Port. I wonder if all those hundreds of years ago, they went through all these trials, and dissapointments, before hitting on the formula's we enjoy so much.