Greetings and kia ora from New Zealand! I spoke this past week at a Syrah workshop in Napier (Hawkes Bay) and will be speaking this week at Pinot Noir 2010 in Wellington. But, as the Pinot event has not yet happened, well, not much to talk about that conference less anticipation and excitement for what’s sure to be a killer few days and a tad of anxious trepidation about speaking on a blind Pinot Noir tasting panel later in the week to be flanked on either side by Oz Clarke and Matthew Jukes.

Ahh the Syrah conference. What a great one day workshop. While I did my well received session entitled “A Sommelier’s Perspective” that looked at this varietal via its strengths and opportunities at the dining room table today, there were multiple other excellent sessions that I had the pleasure of participating in and listening to as a delegate rather than having to speak. There were several intriguing tastings including a NZ Syrah horizontal led by the gifted and eloquent Craggy Range winemaker, Rod Easthope; an Aussie equivalent presided over by the equally articulate Dan Buckle of Mount Langi Ghiran; a smashing Rhone overview by Jason Yapp; and finally a truly extraordinary global Syrah styles tasting orchestrated majestically by the ab fab Tim Atkin MW.

The technical programs were very cool as well with topics ranging from the importance of vine vigor which featured a case study of Syrah plantings in the Hawkes Bay area and a very enlightening session that sought to isolate and identify the component in Syrah that delivers the black pepper/spice in Syrah wines (notably in Rhône, cool climate Aussie, and Hawkes Bay iterations where it seems to come off the strongest). Led by one Dr. Markus Herderich, the session, which took all sorts of data from sensory analysis and varying research experiment, began by explaining that there are over 700 volatile compounds in wine that can be measured but only 12 or so that are what they call impact compounds, linked to what we can actually perceive. An example would be the 3-isopropyl-2-methoxypyrazine that gives kiwi sauvignon blanc that grassy/gooseberry character we are all so familiar with in that grape’s wine. The culprit of Syrah’s pepperiness turns out to be isolated in a compound called rotundone and has the potency, for those who perceive it, of TCA (corkiness) of about an eyedropper in a swimming pool being enough to make said pool smell peppery and one gram of which is enough to make all of the annual crush in Australia smell peppery! WOW..

Dr. Herderich demonstrated in a study of the 2002 and 2003 vintages for Shiraz in Australia in a cooler ‘high pepper’ vintage (2002) that the measurable rotundone was higher than in a warmer ‘less peppery’ vinage (2003). He also showed a study that measured rotundone in various geographical samplings of Shiraz across Australia and found that it was highest (pepperiest) in cool climate areas like Geelong, the Adelaide Hills, and the Grampians. Neat to know…

So, next time you have a peppery glass of Cote Rôtie or a spicy Shiraz from the Grampians you can confidently look at your colleagues and snap “Man that’s got a lot of rotundone!” And be right!

Amazing discovery, no?