Human memory is anything but perfect. In fact it is one of the most fallible of human organs there is. In hindsight we clear out memories we do not like any more. We add and subtract from it, we construct stories which never happened in the first place; we make sense where there was none before. Our memory seems to possess an independent creativity that bears only a passing resemblance to actual events.
That’s why wine geeks keep tasting notes, isn’t it? But even if we do, aren’t we deceiving ourselves, mixing up things, are influenced by the circumstances, the sympathy we have for the people we tasted the wine with, the location and the situation when we finally write it down as in a blog entry?
We humans like a narrative. We love to connect the dots even if there is little connectivity, no correlation not to speak of causation in the first place.
Please join me while reminiscing about the past year. What was the best Syrah I drank in 2011?
Well, this is not an easy task. 365 days of wine-drinking gone bye, need to be scrutinised. Pages of tasting notes need to be mastered. I’ll make it short for you
Please allow me to take you to my “winner”. It’s a wine by Thierry Allemand from Cornas village, a small wine region in the Northern Rhone, northwest of Valence, the charming small French town at the Rhone river.
I guess you have heard about the vintener and wine-maker Thierry Allemand.
The best piece on the internet about Thierry Allemand, I found on http://www.wineterroir.com. Thierry Allemand is one of my favourite French wine-makers.
Here you can indulge yourself, see the man, learn about his vision, his vineyards and his wines.
The first Cornas by Thierry Allemand which was served to me was by my good friend Timo Mayer at his home in the Yarra Valley. It was the 1996 Syrah Reynard cuvee from Cornas. The wine tasted like burned rubber which is sometimes labelled as a fault. But I liked this funky wine. It was wonderful complex and full in the mouth, with thr right spicyness. One feels like in paradise while the wine slowly winds it way down the throat.
Timo Mayer presented me with the 2008 vintage of this wine (last Christmas while at his house). It is difficult to describe this awasome drop. In comparison with the 1996 vintage, I would call this wine “domesticated”.
It is not wild as the 1996 vintage. It caters to the more mainstream taste, of what Syrah should taste like. I was not disappointed, not at all. However, I prefer the funkyness of the older vintage.
How can I get access to this wine in Bangkok? Does anybody have an idea?
The Man from Mosel River 