Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Que Syrah,(petit) Sirah, Shiraz

I'm currently flipping through Jancis Robinson's *other* obscenely cumbrous book, "The World Atlas Of Wine" because I'm beginning to think I'm a glutton for punishment. Aside from that, it's dead useful, if a bit *ahem* sleep inducing? less than inspiring? stuffy? Whatever... And it just hit me, she never differentiates between Syrah and Shiraz, and skips over the Petit Sirah, aside from a few notes about Greece and California, where it does well. It's not a huge point, I know, but it's a handy one, none the less... A wine's name can *sometimes* give you a good clue as to where it came from, other times it just serves to confuse the crap out of you! Like, seriously, what's up with the weird name-swapping thing? Like Morio-Muskat, which is a Sylvaner & Pinot Blanc crossing. No Morio, Muscat, Muscadelle, Moscato, Moscatel, yada yada, we get the point...

Personally, I think we should start forcing a rename, and not in the oddball- marketing -Robert- Mondavi-Sauvignon-Blanc-as-Fume-Blanc (because we're afraid to screw up the pronunciation) kind of way, but in a more fun way... Sorry, I'm not creative enough to come up with a new name that doesn't involve a curse word... I'm open to suggestion though!


Incidentally, an easy way to remember is Syrah is "Old World" (basically France) and Shiraz is "New World" (or everwhere else that isn't France).
Winelabels.org has a very interesting article of Petit Sirah, in case you're interested....

And now I'm done whining for the day...

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