Syrah

Identity

Syrah is the pepper grape. That is rare and valuable: few varieties own a molecular marker as well characterised as rotundone, the sesquiterpene identified in 2008, to which roughly one nose in five is anosmic. When you can smell it, nothing else smells like it.

Small bunches, small ellipsoid berries, thick skins loaded with anthocyanins: Syrah gives ink-dark colour, almost blue in youth, medium acidity and tight tannins. It makes wines of medium to full structure, strongly aromatic, built to keep — but it has to be planted in the right place, because it tips from pepper to jam quickly.

History and origin

For a long time the story ran that Syrah came from Shiraz in Persia, or from Syracuse, carried home by crusaders or Roman legions. Charming, and false. Microsatellite genotyping established that Syrah is the offspring of Dureza, a black grape of the Ardèche, and Mondeuse Blanche, a white grape of Savoie. Two parents separated by two hundred kilometres of Rhône valley: Syrah was born at home.

That parentage, confirmed by markers in the VIVC (no. 11748), was verified here in Vouillamoz and Grando, Heredity 97:102-110 (2006), which restates it and additionally demonstrates kinship with Teroldego of the Trentino. The primary publication usually cited — Bowers, Siret, Meredith, This and Boursiquot, Acta Horticulturae 528 (2000) — is not freely accessible.

The VIVC states the cross as "Mondeuse Blanche × Dureza", Mondeuse Blanche being the seed parent. Neither parent is seriously cultivated today: Dureza has vanished from French appellation rules, and Mondeuse Blanche is down to a few hectares in Savoie.

One naming trap is worth flagging: "Petite Sirah" appears among the VIVC's historical synonyms, but today denotes Durif, a distinct variety arising from Peloursin × Syrah.

In the vineyard

Syrah buds mid-season, six days after Chasselas, and ripens in the second period, about two and a half weeks after it. Its shoots are long and fragile in spring, apt to snap in wind: it demands careful trellising, which is part of why the northern Rhône works in walled terraces.

Its vigour is high. It is not especially prone to downy mildew but suffers from mites and from grey rot when ripening runs late. It goes chlorotic on high-limestone soils and adapts badly to ground rich in active lime. It also has a syndrome of its own, "Syrah decline", which shows as a reddening of the foliage at the graft union; its causes are unresolved and clonal differences have been observed.

Its chosen ground is granitic: granite, gneiss and decomposed granitic sand on the terraced slopes between Vienne and Valence. The rolled pebbles and schists of the south suit it too, in a sunnier register.

In the glass

Dense colour, purple-black in youth. On the nose, black pepper leads, the more intensely the cooler the vintage and the more moderate the ripeness — the first sign you are dealing with a northern Syrah. Violet follows it, magnificent in Côte-Rôtie. The fruit is black: blackberry, blackcurrant, with a streak of liquorice. Further south, garrigue — thyme, rosemary, cistus — joins in; it is absent from the northern crus.

Winemaking and élevage add smoke and smoked bacon, the meaty note characteristic of Cornas and Hermitage.

On the palate acidity stays medium — 3 to 4, never more — and it falls away quickly in warm climates. Tannin runs from 3 in a supple flatland Crozes-Hermitage to 5 in an old-vine Cornas given a long élevage. Body and alcohol do not drop below 3: even light versions keep volume.

With age the pepper recedes in favour of leather, truffle — linked to dimethyl sulphide, whose role in aged Rhône reds has been measured — meat and tar. A twenty-year-old Côte-Rôtie smells nothing like it did at five.

Great terroirs

The northern Rhône is its home and its benchmark: in the reds of its crus, it is the only black grape allowed. Côte-Rôtie, where it may be co-fermented with a little Viognier; Hermitage, on its hill; Cornas, where the appellation rules admit nothing else, across a single commune; Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage, more approachable.

In the southern Rhône it becomes a blending grape alongside Grenache and Mourvèdre, bringing colour, pepper and tannin.

Elsewhere in France it is widely planted in the Languedoc, Provence and the south-west, usually in blends.

Beyond France, Australia made it Shiraz — the Barossa for power, the Hunter Valley for an older style, the Grampians and Canberra for razor-clear pepper. South Africa (the Swartland), Chile, the central Californian coast and the Swiss Valais all make serious versions.

Commonly confused with

The main trap is Mourvèdre: the same dense colour, the same animal and leather notes with age. Mourvèdre is more austere, more reductive, with drier tannins and without Syrah's clean pepper.

With Cabernet Sauvignon the confusion turns on black fruit and structure. Cabernet brings cedar and graphite, higher acidity and more angular tannin; it has neither the pepper nor the violet.

Grenache lacks the colour and the tannin but can come close in a concentrated vintage; higher alcohol and more confected fruit give it away.