WTN: 2001 Qupé Syrah Bien Nacido Hillside Estate

[geo t.]

I had the opportunity to taste through many of Qupé Wine Cellars' current lineup a few weeks ago, and was quite impressed with pretty much everything I tried. Click here to read the whole rundown; read on for my impressions of the wine of the day.

2001 Qupé Santa Maria Valley Syrah Bien Nacido Vineyard Hillside Estate, $42 - 46.99: Bob Lindquist calls this deep dark garnet (shading to purple at the rim) "probably the best Syrah I've ever made," and while my experience with his wines is fairly limited, it is indeed terrific stuff. Made with grapes from the original "Z" block at Bien Nacido, planted for Qupé in 1992, it shows rich extracted dark plum and blackberry flavors and aromas with subtle accents of underbrush and mocha. Despite significant tannins and good acidity, there's a creamy texture to this, and while those tannins clamp down some, they don't entirely restrain the length on the finish. One especially interesting aspect of this wine is that around day five of fermentation, some of the juice is drawn off (saignée) into two new Francois Fréres barrels and barrel fermented, then blended back into the final assemblage, adding "a toasty mocha note in the aromas along with silky, rich tannins," according to Lindquist. As per my notes, this is quite evident when tasting the wine. Aged for 20 months in Francois Fréres barrels (2/3 new), it was was bottled unfined and unfiltered. No reason to think that this is not at least a ten - year wine.

Reporting from Day-twah,

geo t.