Good deep ruby-red. Knockout nose combines black raspberry, mocha, Cuban tobacco, smoked meat, bitter chocolate and white pepper. Sweet, dense and thick, but with the lively acidity of the year contributing freshness to the flavors of dark berries, bitter chocolate and licorice. This wonderfully sweet wine really grips the palate. I'd love to be able to jump ahead ten years to see what this will do in the cellar. The pH is a solid 4.0, and yet this wine has real verve.

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The 2005 IX Syrah Estate is a dense purple-hued wine of polished elegance and finesse, subtle but intense aromatics offering up notes of earth, lard, meat, spring flowers as well as black and blue fruits. It is buttressed by good acidity, and fine, yet sweet tannins. This medium to full-bodied wine should evolve effortlessly for a decade or more. There are less than 400 cases of the estate wine. Ann Colgin and her winemaking team have been making Cabernet Sauvignon from the Herb Lamb Vineyard since 1992, but the production seems to get smaller and smaller every year.

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Intense and concentrated, with tightly wound pepper, spice, wild berry, currant and fresh leather flavors that slowly and gracefully unfold, revealing layers of complexity and depth and finishing with a long, layered, persistent aftertaste. To be released spring 2008. 411 cases made.

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