It’s interesting to see just how loosely terms like “cool climate” can be used sometimes in today’s wine world. For instance, take this Kingston Family syrah from the Casablanca Valley, supposedly one of Chile’s coolest areas. The owners of the winery certainly insist that they are “cool climate,” even though the results may speak otherwise. At five years old, this syrah is dark, opaque and purple, highly extracted, significantly high in alcohol (14.5%), with a creamy, excessively round texture and tons of dark fruit with some soft spices and a lot of toasty, chocolatey notes. With such richness and intensity, it’s hard to believe that the winemaker “backed off on the extraction”, and endeavored “to guide the wines more towards aroma, flavor, and balance, and away from sheer power”. If that is true, it’s hard to imagine just how far down the line of excess previous vintages were. Whatever the intention was, this remains unsubtle and over the top, and nothing that should reasonably be filed in the “cool climate” category. Not Recommended. RC
WHO: Kingston Family Vineyards
WHAT: Syrah
WHERE: Casablanca Valley, Chile
WHEN: 2007
HOW MUCH: $23 USD, $30 Canadian