The Husband is not into the whole blog thang. Sometimes he thinks of my little hobby as a time consuming annoyance and although he is far more articulate than I (well, some of the time) he will never blog. Except when he found out about this site.... I think he's ready to make the plunge. When I told him about Mrs. Big Dubya's challenge/ directive/ suggestion to try a new red, he was at the wine store within the hour. One of the bottles he picked up was Syratica, a 2003 Napa Valley Syrah produced by X Winery, that the wine store billed as having cherry, vanilla, and fruity this or that. We paired it with a Trader Joe's Roasted Vegetable Pizza which is a vegan cheeseless/ tomatoless pizza with a caramelized onion "sauce" and roasted artichokes, shiitakes, and red peppers on top. I served it with a bit of chevre alongside to make the crust more interesting. The wine paired well with the sweetness of the caramelized onions but when I snuck in a piece of my daughter's Margharita Pizza the combination was pretty nasty. The acidity in the tomato sauce created an ugly collision of flavors. The goat cheese was moderately aromatic and while the combination was not as foul as with the tomato, the wine did nothing for the cheese and vice versa.
We followed dinner with molten chocolate cake from Trader Joe's (the low fat organic pizza cancels out the cake don'tcha know?) and the wine held up well against the chocolate. I guess I would recommend this as a wine to drink with dessert not for it's sweetness, per se, but for the fact that it was only drinkable with the sweeter foods on the menu.
Also? I awoke at 1:30 in the morning and was awake for an hour downing huge glasses of water to offset the feeling of a really hard night of drinking (which it wasn't). I felt so awful, I actually replied to work email. In my pj's. At 1:30 in the morning. Today have a wicked headache and upset stomach and I blame the wine.
Verdict: at $14.99 this bottle won't become a regular but I highly recommend the molten chocolate cakes. mmmm.
