Originally Posted By: Steve Edmunds
begging your indulgence, here, Tom. I think I've made Syrah wine from somewhere between 15 and 20 different sites,(17, I think) over the last 27 years, and each of them has exhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, the smoky, pork/ham/baconfat aromatic/flavor character before ever touching wood. Climates (and vintages) from cold to hot.

Yup...your Syrahs probably display more bacon fat character, consistently, than anyone's in Calif. From cold (but not what I was thinking about...cold-climate...except for Bassetti..which I thought showed more bacon fat than any of them) to hot. Thus one could say it (bacon fat) is something characteristic of SteveEdmunds Syrahs and not unique to cold-climate Syrah??
But there are some Syrahs in Calif that display more of the roasted/espresso/bacon-fat/smokey character of NorthernRhone that I also attribute to oak treatment as well, that doesn't come across as overt oakiness.
Tom