The Merry Drinker

You will find plenty of stories and legends surrounding wine, but almost none about grapes.  This is hardly surprising. A potent, aromatic liquid is mysterious, and therefore romantic. A piece of fruit has no mystery and is essentially dull, except perhaps as the subject of a still life.

One of the few exceptions is the Syrah grape. For centuries men have been telling colourful tales about its origins. In one version, the grape originates from Syracuse in Sicily.  Supposedly it was discovered there in the third century A.D. by the armies of the Roman Emperor Probus, then exported to a grateful world, eventually finding its true home in the Rhône valley in France.

According to the most famous myth, Syrah comes from Shiraz in Persia, where great wine was made before the arrival of Islam. You will recall that Omar Khayyám’s idea of a good time consisted of a flask of wine, a book of verse and the ministrations of his girlfriend. Omar’s flask would almost certainly have held Shiraz wine, and it is agreeable to think that this tasted like the great Syrahs of our day: a Côte-Rotie or Hermitage from the Rhône, or a Penfold’s Grange from Australia (where Syrah is known as Shiraz).

Agreeable, but wrong.  For one thing, the wines of Shiraz were white. They were also sweet, probably through fortification.  Those who study these matters are agreed that the wines of Persia had a lot more in common with Sherry or Madeira than with any modern red.

In fact, all the charming speculation was ended in 1998 by the Department or Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis.  Using DNA technology the Department’s unromantic scientists established that Syrah is derived from the grape varietals Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche, both native to the northern Rhône. The grape has no connection with either ancient Sicily or medieval Persia.

We may have lost the romance, but we still have the wine, a powerful, fleshy red that suggests fierce summers and uncompromising people. Handled badly, Syrah can amount to nothing more than brutish gut-rot.  Handled well, it makes for wines of startling nobility and grace.

This week’s example is undoubtedly one of the latter. I have already sung the praises of  the Chilean winemaker Aurelio Montes: his Montes Alpha M is considered one of the finest Chilean reds, his Chardonnays are encrusted with awards, and his Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon is quite simply the best value wine I have ever drunk.  Like Alexander the Great, Señor Montes is constantly sighing for fresh worlds to conquer.  Montes Folly is his most resounding triumph so far in the Syrah campaign.

The wine gets its name from Señor Montes’s choice of vineyard.   Everyone else thought the location and altitude disastrously unsuited to Syrah, and the whole experiment seemed doomed to catastrophe. Needless to say, they were wrong and Señor Montes was right.  The ironically named Folly is the resulting wine.  It is worth spending ten minutes merely savouring its nose, an ever-shifting swirl of cinnamon and coffee, charcoal and cloves. On the palate it is equally kaleidoscopic, one moment suggesting rare beef, the next dates, the next licorice. It costs $50 (£33), which is not cheap, particularly in these difficult times. But if you have the money and the mood for something very special, Montes Folly is definitely one to consider.