J Lohr Estates 2008 South Ridge Syrah

The Winery: J Lohr
The Wine: 2008 South Ridge Syrah
The Price: $10.99 at QFC

 J Lohr is a California winery, located on the central coast near Monterey. The winery was founded by Jerry Lohr, who planted the first of the grape vines in 1972.

The Syrah is a blend of 93% Syrah, 3% Petite Sirah, 3% Grenache and 1% "other reds".  The wine was aged in American and French oak barrels for 14 months before bottling. 

The wine bottle was stopped with a natural cork, and the wine was decanted an hour before tasting.

The wine is deep burgundy in color.  It has aromas of blackberry, blueberry and plum.

This is a fantastic Syrah!  It has very smooth and extremely well balanced flavors of blackberry and blueberry that combine in a velvety explosion of fruity goodness!  

Besides making a wonderful Syrah, I appreciate the thoughtfully designed and very informative website that J Lohr has built.  

Don Sebastiani & Sons 2009 The Crusher Petite Sirah

The Winery:  Don Sebastiani & Sons
The Wine:  2009 The Crusher Petite Sirah
The Price:  $11.99 at QFC


Don Sebastiani & Sons is a California winery.  While located in Sonoma, they source grapes from several appellations.  The grapes for this wine were sourced from the Clarksburg AVA, in the San Francisco Bay area. 


The wine bottle was stopped with a synthetic cork and decanted an hour before tasting.


The wine is very dark purple in color.  It has muted aromas of blackberries and plums, but it is fairly lacking in aromas at all. 


This is a disappointingly bland wine.  There is just not much flavor to it.  The flavor that is there is good, but it's amazingly lacking.  The wine has flavors of blackberry and plum.  The flavors in the wine are very well balanced and very smooth, but it lacks punch.  If the flavors were at all pronounced, I'd highly recommend this wine.  But given how underwhelming the flavors are, I have a hard time endorsing this.  It's too bad, because I'm always on the hunt for a really good Petite Sirah.

Yalumba 2008 Eden Valley Shiraz Viognier

The Winery:  Yalumba
The Wine:  2008 Eden Valley Shiraz Viognier
The Price:  $13.99 at Costco

Yalumba is an Australian winery.  Founded in 1849, they are Australia's oldest family owned winery.  The name Yalumba comes from an aboriginal word meaning, "all the land around." 

The Shiraz Viognier is comprised of 97% Shiraz and 3% Viognier, all sourced from southern Australia's Eden Valley.

The wine bottle was stopped with a screw cap and was decanted an hour before tasting.  The wine is very dark purple in color. It has velvety smooth aromas of plum, cherry and cassis. 

This is an incredibly delicious wine with very smooth and well balanced flavors of plum and cherry with a slightly spicy finish.  I absolutely love this wine!  And at the price it is a great bargain!