2003 Eclipse Los Carneros Syrah

[TheEngineer]

I think this is a private label and was bottled by HdV. As such, at $23, I thought, what the hell. How could it hurt.... its nice.

Dark purple garnet, smokey, pie crust, blueberry, on the nose. On the palate, loads of berries, and while decanted for a couple of hours, still relatively tannic but the wine is smooth, round, velvety, deep but not overly so. It's got a bit of restraint on this. Must have been the barrels that did not make it into the blend but as a "second" wine, it did a pretty good job, especially at $23. If it had a bit more earthiness/barnyardiness to it, I would've thought it was a Rhone.