Wine Reviews

The 2020 Syrah Le Sol is bloody good. It offers the drinker an appetizing raspberry-fruited opening. It’s a succulent and suave initially, but on the finish it opens a new chapter, showing the tension and sinew of whole clusters fermentation (40%), driving the wine forward with persistence and energy. While ripe and having the right amount of puppy fat to get your teeth into, this wine also shows freshness, cool climate spice and lift. The tannins are abundant yet resolved.

Bright and glossy with subtle and elegant spices, with more red and blue fruit than black. Diffusive and chalky tannins dwell upon the red cherries and plums on the palate, with white pepper and flowers in the streamlined, linear finish. Quite engaging now, but can hold, too.

It opens with baked cherry and currant fruit, sage, cracked pepper, licorice and tar, with a spine of chocolaty oak. There is power on the palate, framed in savory, powdery tannins amid the fresh fruit and pepper flavors. Cellar Selection.

There’s an abundance of serious tannins surrounding the core, and they’re resolved and very fine.

A very impressive and impactful expression of syrah from the cooler climes of Hawke’s Bay, this offers red plum and blackberry, as well as pepper, violets, dry spices and stones. Very fragrant and complex. The palate is intense, with real purpose and direction to the clean-cut tannins. Long, pure darker-berry flavors abound. On form.