Invented Out Of Spite
TASTING NOTES:
2021 Dunham Cellars Syrah, Columbia Valley - “Our 100% Syrah opens with savory notes of sage, herbs, and rosemary mingling amongst a backdrop of inky blue and black fruits. Additional time in the glass reveals cedar, smoked meats, fig, graphite, and dried cranberry. All of these beautiful, complex notes are found on the palate with lifted acidity and balanced tannins providing the structure to age gracefully.” (AbV 14.0%, pH 3.76)
2022 Dunham Cellars Syrah, Columbia Valley - “Opens with vibrant red fruit aromas of cherry and red currant. Floral and herbal nuances are seamlessly woven throughout, revealing delicate notes of dried roses, mulberries, sage, and thyme. Medium- to full-bodied and bright on the palate, it offers a soft, approachable texture and a graceful, balanced expression of the varietal.” (AbV 14.0%, pH 3.78)
VARIETALS: 100% Syrah
BARRELS: 34% new French oak, 6% new American oak, 60% neutral (2021); 20% new French oak, 80% neutral (2022)
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: Graphite.
Weird thing to taste in a wine, but even weirder once you find out “pencil lead” is a total misnomer — there’s no lead in a pencil and never has been. What you’re actually writing with is graphite, a form of pure carbon, and the mix-up traces back to 1500s England, where a storm knocked over a tree in Borrowdale and shepherds found a strange black rock underneath. They figured it was some form of lead ore, started using it to mark their sheep, and only later realized they’d stumbled onto one of the richest graphite deposits ever found.
England guarded that mine like it was full of actual treasure, because for a while it basically was: armed guards, a purpose-built storehouse, laws that could get a graphite thief shipped off to a penal colony for seven years. The reason graphite mattered so much wasn’t pencils at all — it was cannonball molds, and England had zero interest in other countries figuring out how to make theirs as good. When Napoleon got cut off from British graphite during a trade blockade, he had his own chemist, Nicolas-Jacques Conté, figure out how to fake it with lower-grade graphite and clay. That formula, invented out of pure spite and desperation, is still more or less how pencils get made today.
ICYMI, you have two choices:
- Worried Summer heat might get to your wine before your wine gets to you? Order from the sale linked here, and we’ll get it to you at a cooler time of year!
- Want it shipped now? Every package during the summer will have protected temp control ground shipping for much of the country that takes longer but will ensure safe delivery. Expect up to two weeks for delivery. Now through the September 12th offer.
