June 1, 2010 Is There Still Hope for Syrah? By ERIC ASIMOV FORESTVILLE, Calif. THERE.S a joke going around West Coast wine circles: What.s the difference between a case of syrah and a case of pneumonia? You can get rid of the pneumonia. It would be funnier if it weren.t so sad. In the last few years, beginning even before the economic downturn, sales of American syrah essentially dropped off a cliff. While precise numbers are not available . for tracking purposes, syrah is often lumped in with Australian shiraz, or consigned to .other red wines. . American syrah producers all tell the same story. .It appears to have crashed and burned in this country,. said Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards, who 20 years ago was one of the early proponents of planting California with grapes from the Rhone Valley, like syrah, grenache and mourvedre. Or, as Ehren Jordan, proprietor of Failla Vineyards, put it: .There has been a collective running into a brick wall by people who make syrah.. Such an impact is hard to fathom with a glass of a Failla syrah in front of you. The aroma . of herbs, olives and flowers . stimulates the appetite. The question is not, what.s wrong with syrah, but, where.s dinner? Back in the mid-1990s, syrah was thought to be the next great hope for American red wine. Growers and winemakers, looking for an alternative to cabernet sauvignon and merlot, pinned their hopes on syrah, known for making savory wines in Rhone appellations like Hermitage, C�te-R�tie, Cornas, St.-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage. How syrah went so horribly wrong may be a cautionary tale for anybody looking to capitalize on the next great trend. It.s fair to say that much of the syrah produced in California is dreadfully generic red wine of little character. But perhaps more important to recognize is that quite a few producers like Failla are making superb California syrah, a fact that should not be lost in any analysis of the moribund market. Some producers have made good syrah for years. Others are fairly new to the field and are plunging resolutely ahead, even as the market shrinks. Crucially, though, they are succeeding by staying true to the northern Rhone ideal of making balanced, pungently aromatic wines that belong on the table. Here in Forestville, a small crossroads town in western Sonoma County, two childhood friends, Duncan Arnot Meyers and Nathan Lee Roberts, are making beautifully aromatic, elegant syrahs under the label Arnot-Roberts. Rather than emphasizing power, concentration and heavy fruit flavors, the Arnot-Roberts wines are graceful and relatively low in alcohol. .We.re California kids,. said Mr. Meyers, standing in front of barrels holding the previous year.s vintage. .We believe that we can make really good wines here, but our reference points are the northern Rhone.. He and Mr. Roberts teamed up in 2002 on a shoestring budget. With little financial pressure to cater to the marketplace, they have enjoyed the luxury of stubborn idealism, making wines aimed at achieving the classic northern Rhone aromas and flavors of olives and herbs, bacon and minerals, flowers and spices, blood and earth. .We don.t want to make really fruity wines,. Mr. Roberts said. .It.s those nonfruit aromas that we.re really focused on.. One sniff of the Arnot-Roberts 2006 Clary Ranch syrah, made from grapes grown on the Sonoma Coast near Freestone, leaves no doubt of their ideals. With captivating aromas of black olives, laurel and minerals, the direct connection to the northern Rhone is clear. In the beginning, that was the idea. Back in the 1970s and .80s, the early efforts of American syrah pioneers like Mr. Grahm, Joseph Phelps, Bob Lindquist of Qup� and Steve Edmunds of Edmunds St. John were all intended to emulate Rhone wines. Later entrants to the game had different ideas. Syrah was barely on the radar screen in 1990 when, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, only 164 acres of the grape were planted in the state. Then came an explosion. By the end of that Rhone-mad decade, more than 10,000 acres were planted, and since then even that number has doubled . less perhaps than other red grapes like cabernet sauvignon, merlot, zinfandel and pinot noir, but significant nonetheless. .People were looking for something that would not be too tannic or challenging, and syrah was poised to be that go-to drink,. said Patrick Comiskey, who is writing a book about the American Rhone movement. What happened? Partly, Mr. Comiskey said, pinot noir with its cinematic .Sideways. boost stole syrah.s thunder. More damning, though, was a confusion of styles that robbed American syrah of any sense of identity. As syrah production was beginning to take off, some American wine critics were starting to award their highest scores to big, broad, powerfully fruity wines that displayed richness and opulence. Prominent among them was Barossa Valley shiraz, as syrah is known in Australia. The desire for critical approval, Mr. Comiskey suggested, caused many American syrah producers to emulate this intensely ripe, jammy style. .Syrah tends to lose its character at higher ripeness levels,. he said. .The thing that makes syrah beguiling, beautiful and feral is all lost, and you end up with a much more generic, fruity experience.. Pax Mahle can attest to that personally. Back in 2000 he founded Pax Wine Cellars, making rich, powerful single-vineyard syrahs that were acclaimed by critics like Robert M. Parker Jr. and Wine Spectator. Some of these wines reached alcohol levels above 16 percent. But after a dispute with a financial backer, Mr. Mahle left Pax. He and his wife, Pamela, now make wines of a completely different style under the Wind Gap label, right here in Forestville. .The Pax wines were good of their kind,. he said. .But I found on a Tuesday or Wednesday night they were the wines I least wanted to drink.. So he recalibrated his approach, and now aims for lower alcohol, subtler, more savory wines. .I want the wines to show more earth than fruit, more savor and spice than sweetness,. he said. .I want them above all to be bright and fresh.. His 2006 Sonoma Coast syrah is full of the herbal, meaty, bacon and olive flavors craved by lovers of northern Rhone wines. It weighs in at 13.1 percent alcohol, but even his biggest wine, at 14.9 percent, from the Castelli-Knight vineyard in the Russian River Valley, is discernibly Rhonish. Contributing to the confusion is the fact that a good deal of California syrah is simply planted in inappropriate places. .If you want it to actually have character, it needs to be grown in a very cool climate,. said Mr. Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards, and most top syrah producers would agree. The Peay brothers, Nick and Andy, along with Nick.s wife, Vanessa Wong, grow syrah on their vineyard near Annapolis, in the extreme northwestern corner of Sonoma County just four miles from the Pacific Ocean. There, the fruit struggles to ripen each year, but retains a freshness that comes from sufficient acidity in the grapes. .Syrahs from warm areas lack the syrah signature of pepper, olive, meatiness, iron and mineral,. Nick Peay said. .From warm areas they just have this monochromatic blueberry and oak quality.. His brother chimed in: .There is no better wine for lamb, game and meats, but people are making wines with too much alcohol, too much fruit, no elegance and too much oak.. The Peay syrahs are elegant and polished, not quite as savory as the Wind Gap or Arnot-Roberts wines, perhaps, yet still dripping with the pepper, olive, meat and animal character of syrah. Cool climates, at least in Northern California, are not without risk. Arnot-Roberts made a delectable wine from the grapes from Clary Ranch on the Sonoma Coast in 2006. In 2009, they didn.t ripen enough to make a single-vineyard wine. As with any grape there is no single correct way of making a syrah. It mostly comes down to the personal preference of the growers and winemakers. .The single most important thing is making a good decision about when to pick the grapes,. said Mr. Edmunds of Edmunds St. John, who makes gentle, graceful syrahs with grapes purchased from a variety of sites in California. His preference is for freshness, so he tends to favor those picked on the early side. Other producers, including many in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara County, prefer riper grapes and bigger wines. .Just because you can get it riper doesn.t mean you should get it riper,. said Mr. Lindquist of Qup�, who has never strayed from his original ideal of balanced, Rhone-influenced wines. While the finest syrah producers still manage to sell their wines, it is not without a struggle. Wells Guthrie of Copain Wine Cellars makes excellent single-vineyard syrahs with enthralling mineral, saline, briny flavors. His loyal customers buy direct from the winery. Nonetheless, from the 3,000 cases of single-vineyard syrah that he made in 2006 he reduced his production to 1,200 cases in 2009. .Without the good portion that we sell direct, I don.t know how you would sell any syrah,. he said. Still, producers are keeping their hopes up. Mr. Jordan of Failla points out how young California.s syrah vineyards are, and how much the grapes will improve as the vines age. .People are already making dynamic wines, and are increasingly conscious of where things should be,. he said. Mr. Grahm, Mr. Edmunds and Mr. Lindquist, who.ve seen consumer interest in California syrah rise from nowhere only to crash and burn, likewise continue to focus on the potential. .It.s a great grape, obviously,. Mr. Lindquist said. .And great grapes always rise to the top.. 10 That Defy The Trend Here are 10 of the best California syrah producers (which make wines that emphasize balance and savory aromas and flavors rather than power, concentration and fruitiness), along with some suggested bottles to seek out: ARNOT-ROBERTS Clary Ranch and Griffin.s Lair, both from Sonoma Coast. BONNY DOON VINEYARD Le Pousseur. COPAIN WINE CELLARS Baker Ranch, Brosseau and Hawks Butte. A DONKEY AND GOAT Mendocino and Sierra Foothills. EDMUNDS ST. JOHN Cuv�e Fairbairn and Wylie-Fenaughty. FAILLA Estate, Phoenix Ranch. THE OJAI VINEYARD Melville. PEAY VINEYARDS La Bruma and Les Titans. QUP� Bien Nacido and Stolpman. WIND GAP Sonoma Coast, Griffin.s Lair. -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 *