Wine · Medium strength
Syrah
Black pepper, smoke, and dark fruit — the Rhône's brooding heavyweight.
How to order it: Northern Rhône for savory, Australia (as Shiraz) for power. Decant either.
Flavor profile
The proper serve
- Serve at 60–65°F
- Large-bowl red glass
- Decant an hour for young bottles
- Pairs: barbecue, game, pepper steak
- Northern Rhône = savory; Australia = bold
The story
For generations, romantics insisted Syrah had been carried west from Shiraz in Persia. DNA analysis in 1998 ended the poetry: its parents are Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche, two obscure grapes native to southeastern France. It needed no exotic origin story — the steep granite of Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie in the Northern Rhône had already made it legend, producing peppery, smoked-dark reds that nineteenth-century Bordeaux châteaux sometimes blended in to fortify their own. Australia, which received cuttings in the 1830s, renamed it Shiraz anyway and built a national style around it, crowned by Penfolds Grange. One grape, two names, two temperaments: the Rhône broods, the Barossa swaggers, and both are telling the truth.
Adjacent pours