Besides being one of Eugenio’s favorite wines, only matched by his love for Champagne, Syrah wines are also fantastic with food. Their styles vary widely, from elegant and silky to gamey and rustic.

The Syrah grape is incredibly adaptable thanks to its hardy nature, its resistance to diseases and its ability to produce well under different climates.

Historically there are two theories about the origins of this noble grape variety; the most popular version traces it back to the Middle East to one of the earliest wine producing regions recorded in history, the city of Shiraz in Iran. Shiraz = Syrah!!

What is well documented is that the Syrah grape already flourished in the Rhone Valley of France before the Roman days, but how it got there is also left to a lot of speculation.

The propagation of the grape to America and Australia is easier to track, since records have been well kept by wine aficionados of our times. But no matter where it is grown, Syrah is bound to impress with its exotic aromas, bold flavors and powerful structure.

The power of these wines is not to be underestimated as they can easily overwhelm lighter dishes, but they will absolutely enhance the flavors of dishes prepared with olives, rosemary and thyme.

The very best pairings for them are meat dishes, especially game.

To this day, it is hard to find wines with the complexity and intensity of the wines produced in the Northern slopes of the Rhone River Valley anywhere else in the world.

The most famous Northern Rhône appellation producing limited quantities of seriously long-lived wines is Hermitage, an area the size of a large Bordeaux estate, just to put it into perspective.

Hermitage was one of France’s most famous wines in the 18th and 19th centuries when the name alone brought in higher prices than any wine except first growth Bordeaux. (Some Bordeaux wines were strengthened by the addition of some Hermitage until the mid 19th century). Hermitage is a hill of heat retaining granite and a steep southern exposure.

Other famous areas in the Rhone Valley dedicated to Syrah include Cote Rotie, Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Cornas.

When tasting Northern Rhone’s red wines, one will be fascinated by the array of exotic aromas they possess; from violets to smoked meats, from spiced plums to tar and bacon fat, from bitter greens to the famous rusticity of “barnyard” (from Brettanomyces yeast).

By the early 1800s a few cuttings of Syrah proved to be well suited to the Australian climate, when it flourished in the Sydney Botanical Gardens. A few years later Shiraz could be found in the Hunter Valley due to its geographical proximity to Sydney, and later on in the areas surrounding the city of Adelaide, especially in the Barossa Valley.

In France, Syrah can be recognized by its peppery and meaty aromas, high acidity and firm structure; however Australia completely disregarded this parameter and produced the flashiest and juiciest wines ever made from this grape variety. Stylistic variations can be found depending of the specific climate where it grows. Believe it or not, Australia has cool-climate wine growing regions such as Victoria and Margaret River.

When planted in California in the late 1980s by a loosely affiliate group of California producers named “The Rhone Rangers”, Syrah found a new home and a legion of wine-drinkers craving something other than the usual Cabernet and Chardonnay widely produced here. These growers made sure not to use the often confused Petite Sirah when blending. Their choice of grapes used to soften the power of Syrah were: Grenache and Mourvedre (Mataro).

Petite Sirah was later discovered by DNA testing to be unrelated to Syrah. Some even suggested that the name was actually applied to a mixture of grapes in the same vineyard producing dark and robust wines, and not to a single grape variety.

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