2003 Ojai Syrah Melville Vineyards
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Tasting notes
Dark ruby. Impressively perfumed bouquet of ripe blackcurrant and candied licorice, with suave floral and mineral nuances emerging in the glass. Supple and sweet, with deep but lively dark fruit liqueur flavors, silky tannins and impressive finishing lift. This is really delicious.
Critic scores
Average Score
Robert Parker
Josh Raynolds
More reviews and scores
The 2003 Syrah Melville Vineyard is one of Ojai’s more closed, structured 2003s. Although not yet strutting its full potential, it is an outstanding effort that will benefit from 2-3 more years of bottle age. Its deep blue/purple color is accompanied by notions of blueberries, charcoal, and crushed rocks. Meaty and rich as well as backward and tannic, it will be at its finest between 2008-2015. Adam Tolmach kindly conducted a mini-vertical, going back to 1995, of his Bien Nacido Vineyard Syrah, and it was good to see how well they all performed. My favorites included the 1996 (93 points), 1998 (91 points), 2000 (93 points), and 2002 (93 points). The only wine that did not show as well as I would have hoped was the 1997 (88 points), which was much lighter and on a faster evolutionary track. Tel. (805) 649-1674