Know the twin grapes, shiraz and Syrah

Syrah and shiraz are the exact same grape variety, but the wines they produce are very different.

Sure, Syrah is the red grape of the northern Rhone and it’s called shiraz when planted in Australia. But there’s more to the story than that.

And knowing the details will up your wine game. Guaranteed.

Why? Because Syrah/shiraz offers some of the best value wines on the planet under $20.

But much of it flies under the radar.

To help you suss out some seriously superlative juice, I’ve rattled off the pertinent information on Syrah and shiraz. Read on.

Syrah — bottled hedonism

Californian vintners like to crack this joke:

What’s the difference between a cold and a case of Syrah? You can get rid of a cold. Industry types find this funny because it’s true. Syrah is a hard sell. Why? Because few wine drinkers are familiar with the variety, which is sad since Syrah is bottled hedonism.

Its beguiling layers unfurl on the tongue, seducing with bushels of wild blueberries, macerated blackberries and steak charred on the surface and rare inside.

Of course, it hails from France — birthplace of many of the world’s finest wines.

Syrah has been growing there since about 600 BC in the northern Rhone.

Bordeaux has its blue-chip-classed growths that command big bucks. Burgundy has its iconic Pinot Noir that every region in the world tries to emulate.

Champagne has its symphonic bubblies. But the northern Rhone has its Syrah — magnetic and true.

If you’ve tasted French reds la- belled Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage or Crozes Hermitage, you’ve tasted Syrah.

But in France, growers tend to label their wines by place of origin rather than grape variety, so the fact they’re Syrah is lost on most.

Syrah may not have much traction in the marketplace. But it is made all over the world now, it is usually varietal-labeled and it offers serious value for the money more often than not.

Therein lies the caustic irony in the joke. Shiraz — seamless texture Shiraz is Syrah. They’re the same grape variety.

But when the wine is labelled shiraz, it tastes sweeter and riper than Syrah with a distinctive dark choco-berry character.

The Australians coined the name shiraz when they started planting Syrah back in the mid 1800s. It grows well there and can be produced inexpensively.

Shiraz took the world by storm in the 1980s and ’90s, when Australia began exporting lashings of it at low prices.

Syrah is the red grape of the northern Rhone in France, and shiraz is the exact same grape, just grown in Australia instead

Shiraz is still Australia’s most-planted grape variety, with 42,000 hectares under vine.

That’s a lot of vineyards, when you consider Ontario has fewer than 7,000 hectares, total, for all grape varieties.

The charm of well-made, sub-$20 shiraz is its opulent but seamless texture.

This texture comes from ripe tannins, bright acid and high alcohol, which exist in such perfect balance that they go unnoticed, yet offer the firm structure needed to scaffold sumptuous fruit.

As with a well-engineered and deftly designed car, where all you notice is a great ride, a lot of technical reasons underpin the opulence of shiraz.

Places such as California, Washington, Argentina, Chile and even Ontario now toy with the grape variety, calling it shiraz when it’s made in the Aussie style.

And much of it is inspiringly good value. Carolyn Evans Hammond is a Torontobased wine writer. She is also a Londontrained sommelier and two-time bestselling wine book author. Reach her at carolyn@carolynevanshammond.com.