This is a great wine, despite all of it's silly marketing.  First off, many of you have never heard of Red Car Winery.  The winery is in Santa Maria, on the Central California Coast.  The make wines from vineyards all across the state, including Napa vineyards, Sonoma vineyards, and central coast vineyards.  They make Syrah, Pinot Noir, and a Rose.  I have not had the Pinot or the Rose, but all of their Syrahs are excellent.  For 2002, the Syrahs were labeled as "The Fight", "The Table", and "Sugar Daddy".  For 2003, the Syrahs are labeled "The Fight", "All Night Radio", and "Some Like it Red".  They tell little stories on the back of the labels, and have artsy paintings on the front of the labels.  The web site also carries these themes.  I guess they do all this to differentiate themselves in a very competitive marketplace, now saturated with wineries that make high quality wines with outsourced grapes.  For Red Car, however, this is somewhat unnecessary, as the wines could succeed handsomely on their own with nothing more than a generic wine label!  This is really good Syrah.

The 2002 "The Fight" is a 100% Syrah from Napa Valley's Richard Perry Vineyard.  The wine has a deep red-purple color, and a huge bouquet that jumps out of the glass.  All sorts of interesting notes come and go out of the bouquet including raspberries/wild cherries, saddle leather, toasted cedar, and Provencal herbs, sage, and thyme.  This is a very fruit forward wine on the palate, with bursts of peppery spice mixed with sweet fruit hitting the finish.

An absolutley lovely example of California Syrah that does not try to copy a Northern Rhone Syrah.  Good job.

4 stars.  The wine retails for about 50-55 dollars, but is exceedingly hard to find.  Those who are interested should join the mailing list from the winery, at RedCarWine.com

 

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