No varietal is more special to me than Syrah. It can express itself in so many unique ways, but there’s always this wild, masculine undercurrent. It can be brooding, gamey, sometimes downright bloody when it’s grown in steep, windy, rocky vineyards. The small vineyard I farmed in California was planted mostly to Syrah, and I’m grateful to have learned the trade working with such a remarkable varietal.

We will begin in France, in the Northern Rhone, with a wine from Crozes-Hermitage or Saint Joseph. We’ll head nearly due south and taste a Shiraz from South Africa’s Stellenbosch before heading over to Southeast Australia for their own unique take. Back across the Pacific, we’ll see a menacing example from the Washington-Oregon state line, before concluding with the wine I grew in Green Valley, the tiny sub-appalchian within Russian River Valley.