The Good Stuff - 2001 White Oak Napa Valley Syrah
We did decide to have one of the our special wines over the weekend. It was a very special purchase in the Fall of 2004. We had a very memorable experience at this winery and this wine is a great memory of the place and time.
It was the end of our first day of tastings in Sonoma, California with our good friends Keith and Susan, and we arrived at White Oak with about 5 minutes before closing. As we parked and walked towards the entrance one of the tasting room staff was heading to close up shop. We ran to the door and pleaded our case to come in for a quick tasting and promised we would purchase something. She relented and we proceeded to have a great time at the tasting table and the staff was really fun and fantastic considering we kept them late. We kept our promise and purchased some wine including this bottle ($25 USD at the time) which has since traveled across the US and back up into Canada since that time so we had no idea how this wine might have survived.
Upon opening, the cork broke. Not a shock but not the best start. After seeing the crystals and debris in the bottom of the bottle we decided to decant this for over an hour. To our delight this wine had stayed in great shape. We had a nice dinner of short ribs to go with the wine which went well. The wine was big and dark, so dark in fact we could not see through the glass. It also had the mahogany rim around the edge we would expect from an older wine. The nose was so full and big with black currents and plums it was truly amazing. The flavours were big and we needed to give it a couple of hours of decanting to really allow the wine to open up. Once it started to open we loved the big flavours of dark fruit again and oak. It was really awesome. The years were absolutely kind to this wine and we were so happy to see this wine stand up to time. Half way through the bottle we had some Baldersons 5 Year Old Cheddar which took cheese pairings to a whole new level. The fatty full-flavoured cheese was absolutely perfect with the Syrah. It was a match made in heaven.
Special bottles like this don't come around too often and we really appreciated the opportunity to enjoy this on a quiet Saturday night. If you have any bottles with a similar memorable story or adventure we'd love to hear more about it.
Keep on drinking!
Chris & Shannon
It was the end of our first day of tastings in Sonoma, California with our good friends Keith and Susan, and we arrived at White Oak with about 5 minutes before closing. As we parked and walked towards the entrance one of the tasting room staff was heading to close up shop. We ran to the door and pleaded our case to come in for a quick tasting and promised we would purchase something. She relented and we proceeded to have a great time at the tasting table and the staff was really fun and fantastic considering we kept them late. We kept our promise and purchased some wine including this bottle ($25 USD at the time) which has since traveled across the US and back up into Canada since that time so we had no idea how this wine might have survived.
Upon opening, the cork broke. Not a shock but not the best start. After seeing the crystals and debris in the bottom of the bottle we decided to decant this for over an hour. To our delight this wine had stayed in great shape. We had a nice dinner of short ribs to go with the wine which went well. The wine was big and dark, so dark in fact we could not see through the glass. It also had the mahogany rim around the edge we would expect from an older wine. The nose was so full and big with black currents and plums it was truly amazing. The flavours were big and we needed to give it a couple of hours of decanting to really allow the wine to open up. Once it started to open we loved the big flavours of dark fruit again and oak. It was really awesome. The years were absolutely kind to this wine and we were so happy to see this wine stand up to time. Half way through the bottle we had some Baldersons 5 Year Old Cheddar which took cheese pairings to a whole new level. The fatty full-flavoured cheese was absolutely perfect with the Syrah. It was a match made in heaven.
Special bottles like this don't come around too often and we really appreciated the opportunity to enjoy this on a quiet Saturday night. If you have any bottles with a similar memorable story or adventure we'd love to hear more about it.
Keep on drinking!
Chris & Shannon
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