Craggy Range, Block 14 Syrah, Gimblett Gravels

Still a very good wine, at age 21!

Superb cooler climate Syrah, drinking at its prime. Magnificent dark colour, glorious rich nose. Lovely dark fruit, lovely mouth coating texture, just enough acidity and gentle integrated tannins holding it all together very very nicely. What a credit to Craggy Range!

{cork, 14.5%} Still a solid, dark garnet red. Barely looks ten, that's for sure. Nose is aged, a touch varnishy in character, with sweet coconut oak and ripe - almost over-ripe - raspberry notes. Becomes jammy with swirling. Big, initially sweet palate, picks up a menthol-like character, then a quick glimpse of raisins and pepper, and becomes softly oaky and spicey. But then, the palate hollows out significantly to a short, alcoholic finish (at least by NZ standards). Doubtless was …

Quite oxidized - very much like a tawny port. Very oaky but flabby in the mouth. Nothing like as structured and tight as when first released, The next bottle was less oxidized and had more grip on the palate but suggest that this wine is past its best. A major disappointment from a wine I expected to age to grace. Nothing like the Le Sol from this year (or the bordeaux styled wines from the same vintage).

Opened after a badly oxidized bottle, this bottle still showed oxidative character in terms of a tawny port nose of over-ripe berries, walnut and copious amounts of sweet oak. The bottle still had verve in the mouth and frankly, both wines had good fruit but I suspect that this wine is past its best. Bought at the winery and well cellared. Tough to score as it has good fruit quality but feels tired. It is not (to my taste) in …

delicious and ready, a great drink

First night, this was rough, tough, tannic, and a bruiser. No finesse here to speak of, which left me wondering where Parker got his score from. This is now 3 years after I opened another bottle of this...see Vino Me's notes. I gave this 86pts last night. However, 24 hrs later, this is a bold, rich, and gorgeous wine. Loads of dark cherry, cocoa, cinnamon, and prune. Showed some Rhone character that was missing last night. Still not an excellent …

Haggis opened this wine at his home on Saturday. I always enjoy sampling hard to get interesting wines which I have not had before and this fit the bill. Unfortunately, I did not care for this wine. I thought it suffered from an underripeness which I find all too often in NZ reds. I noted flavors of sickly fruit on the palate. 82 points.

Dense, concentrated, but dominated by sweet vanilla oak. Tasted expensive, luxurious, but I don't detect any syrah character or any of the spice and fragrance that one gets from a northern Rhone. Frankly, I didn't enjoy it that much, and therefore find it hard to mark.