I'm falling farther behind again on my reviews, so I'll whip through these 3 bottles of vino drunk over the last 3 weeks, 2 syrahs and a chianti (the whipping witnessed by the rather slapdash quality of my photos of these).
The first is a 2007 Red Bicyclette syrah. I'd heard good press on Red Bicyclette, but I didn't like it. I thought the flavor was pretty thin and not much nose. I don't think I even finished the bottle, though I can say that about 9 out of 10 syrahs I've drunk this winter.
Next is a 2007 Castle Rock syrah from the Russian River. My local Liquee Mart had a tasting of Castle Rock this past Thursday and I'm sorry I couldn't get there because I rather liked this syrah. It's about the only American syrah that I've drunk this winter that I did like. I got a bit of a molasses note from it, and I drank the whole bottle pretty quickly.
Last is a 2003 Querceto Chianti Classico Riserva, which ran me $30. This was tied with the $10 Candoni from a month or so ago for the best [and only] chiantis that I liked. This would be a good wine to match with a nice Italian spread of antipasti and the whole shebang. My only complaint is I had to spread drinking it over several days, and it definitely lost a lot of its flavor. But my fault to blow a $30 wine, not the $30 wine's.
I'm going to review one more syrah and one more chianti to finish up my winter drinking--though we're already 2 weeks into spring--and then I'll switch to a couple whites for summer. I haven't decided for sure which, but maybe pinot blanc and chablis. And I'll try to post more regularly [hopefully I'll be drinking wines I like the next 6 months].