Talk-A-Vino

Of course, it is Wine Wednesday – but this was just a happenstance. Not anything I planned.

A traditional dilemma – what to open?

Checked one wine fridge – no, nothing spoke to me. Next thought – maybe Field Recordings?

Again, without much thought – how about that bottle? I passed it a few times before. What vintage is that? Oh, 2019, that might be good. Ha! It is also a Syrah! Nice, my wife loves Syrah, might be her favorite red grape. Prefect, we have a bottle to open.

Talk about wines made in the vineyard. I discovered Field Recordings wines almost 15 years ago. At that time, the wines were more of a side project for Andrew Jones, a consulting grape grower. By nature of his profession, Andrew had relationships with many grape growers. More importantly, he knew the best plots in their vineyards, and thus he knew where to find the best grapes when he needed them. And little by little, Field Recordings became a powerhouse and a darling of Paso Robles, with the wines of unbound creativity.

My first Field Recordings wine was the wine called Fiction – here is my post about that experience: Music, Recorded in the Vineyard. This was love at first sight. Fiction by Field Recordings was my wine of the year in 2011. And Field Recordings is the only wine club I ever joined, and I’m still a member there. Over the years, there were literally a handful of Field Recordings wines I didn’t enjoy, because for the most part, my favorite descriptor for the Field Recordings wines is probably “mind-blowing” or maybe “mind-boggling”. As was the case today.

I opened the 2019 Field Recordings Zabala Zabala Vineyard Arroyo Seco (12.9 ABV, 100% Syrah) and poured it in the glass right away. The first whiff had a bit of the funk (love funk!) and a bramble. But on the palate… Oh my, the palate was a pure symphony. Well, a caveat – you have to love black pepper to call that experience a symphony. The palate was full of freshly ground, gorgeous, salivating black pepper. I experienced such purity only once before, while tasting the 2011 Michel Chapoutier Tournon Mathilda Shiraz from  Australia. I was blown away by the purity of the pepper expression in that wine – and interestingly enough, after that first experience, I had a random success with the same vintage over a few years – but this is not the subject of this post.

This Zabala Syrah was literally mind-boggling (see, told ya, I just can’t avoid it). Dark bramble fruit, a little bit of funk, and lots and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Delicious, perfectly balanced, perfectly harmonious. A pure pleasure in the glass.

Maybe I just got lucky. I don’t have another bottle from the same vintage, so I will not be able to taste it in a year or a few years and report back. But we should enjoy the moment, and this moment in wine was immensely enjoyable. Wine should give you pleasure, and this was a pure pleasure.

So, what was your last mind-blowing wine experience?