Saturday Night – Grill, baby grill! – Part 2

For the main course, I went with a mixed grill of NY strips, sausages and chicken breasts with a side of grilled veggies.

"A ton of food"

I wanted a Merlot to go with the food but my lovely wife wanted a Shiraz/Syrah so I compromised and opened a 2003 Sterling Merlot and 2002 Arrowood Syrah.

I’ll review the Arrowood Syrah first and then review the Sterling Merlot in Part 3.

"A very good Syrah"

The nose on the Arrowood was a pleasing mixture of cassis, blackberry, pine and black pepper. Tasting the wine, you quickly notice the black cherry and black pepper flavour. The structure on the wine is good but there was quite a bit of heat (15% alcohol), nice acidity and soft tannin rounded out the wine nicely. There was also a long lingering peppery finish to the wine that I liked. It was a good pairing with all of the food.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 89, Mark – 90, Kathy – 88, Amy – 88, Overall – 88.75.

The Arrowood Syrah was purchased in the US by me a couple of years ago for about $27 US a bottle ($42 CDN a bottle after duty, taxes and exchange).

Click here for Part 3