Te Awa 09 Syrah, Hawkes Bay NZ

Te Awa Syrah at a recent industry tasting perplexed me. Tasters were praising it's complexity and balance and all I could find was a well made wine with no obvious high lights. Taking a bottle home and decanting for several hours did certainly prise out more overt complexity, but I still wanted more. After some self inward thinking I realized that the wine was not the problem it was me!!!! I'd cut my teeth tasting big full bodied, with high alcohol and hugely extracted flavour and that had become my standard. When faced with a wine that didn't slap me around I judged it poorly. Anyway back to the TeAwa Syrah, yes it has complexity and yes it's balanced and interesting. Just look deeper! As a metaphor 'wine is like an onion the more layers we pull back the more intense the flavours'.