Syrah Masters 2017: the results in full

What did the judges think? (continued)

Tobias Gorn

The Syrah Masters confirmed that Syrah is indeed a worthy variety and, because it is not the most fashionable variety or easiest to cultivate and vinify, it usually carries some extra determination and passion as a choice itself. We had some great examples of excellent wines throughout the different price categories.

To be honest I had a sense that Syrah/Shiraz were getting harvested a tad too late with maybe a touch too much focus on sugar ripeness instead of phenolic ripeness.

However, the samples we had were rather balanced and showed a great shift away from that extra-heavy weight attitude to making wines with some more structure and finesse. I’m also happy to see less Brettanomyces and more clean fruit.

The potential complexity, intensity and vivacious array of flavours behind Syrah is no news however it needs good growing conditions and accurate wine making to create truly fine wines. I loved some of the more aged examples submitted this year. It is perhaps the way forward for the higher tier, more premium entries.

If I had one criticism, it would be the issue of reduction, and how to deal with it. Locking such a great wine in a screwcap bottle sometimes isn’t the easiest task. Syrah is known to be prone to reduction and we had some superb wines getting almost ruined by a bit of reduction.

Sounds strange but educating customers or putting a ‘please decant me’ sign could help. To be fair, luckily many samples cleaned up when we revisited them but would the average punter do the same?