Pax Wine Cellars
2004 Cuvee Keltie Syrah North Coast
California, North Coast
Wine Tasting Note:
Initially, this was too hot and closed directly out of the bottle. After a one hour decant: blackberry and mint on the nose. The nose had a bit too much alcohol to enjoy. 11 years in the bottle and still plenty of structure with medium-high tannins and acidity. As you would expect, the freshness of the fruit is gone. The palate is of blackberry, black currant and bitter dark chocolate with a short finish. The alcohol is evident, but not over-whelming. The big winner here is the mouth-feel. A beautiful Northern Rhone kind of character that starts a little oily and finishes with mouth-coating, grainy tannins that were a little to the rustic side of velvetty. This wine has the structure to sit in the cellar much longer, but the fruit will not last. Best drinking window is/was probably 2012-2016. I have seen other recent tasting notes that describes a fruit-forward wine with a sweet finish. This bottle was very dry and had a subdued fruit character.
All-in-all a nice effort to produce an age-able, structured Syrah with a Rhone feel. This would have been a 95+ wine, if the alcohol component had been more balanced against the total profile.
Douglas Levin - Trained, Certified Advanced Sommelier and Wine Writer
Cool Climate Wine 
Doug! Spot on tasting notes and coincidentally we just opened a 2004 Keltie 3L last week! The mouthfeel/texture was there but a tad too ripe, however a crowd pleaser with the present company.
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Thanks for the comment. I was trained by a Master Somm that drove it into my head – don’t judge flavors – way too subjective! Assess balance, structure, mouth-feel… It has taken time to retrain my brain. This approach has made it much harder to find wines that match my sensibilities. My friends have told me the training ruined my palate 🙂
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