2012 Bionic Frog Syrah

Dark, deep red. A tight core of raspberry on the nose, lifted by wild, high-toned notes of pepper, sassafras, herbs and ponzu sauce. Wonderfully sweet, intense and penetrating, conveying a complex balsamic quality and a meaty nuance to its intense raspberry and spice flavors. Superrich and utterly seamless Syrah, more red than black fruit in character. Finishes aromatic, salty and very long, with fine-grained tannins and superb lift. The fruit was harvested on October 2, but winemaker and owner Christophe Baron noted that the sugars were ahead of phenolic ripeness. (ST)

Good dark red-ruby. Wonderfully pure, perfumed scents of dark raspberry, mocha, mustard seed and bacon fat. Fleshy, sweet and deep, with soil-driven salinity adding another dimension to the flavors of raspberry, smoked meat and flowers. Between the wine's palate-saturating fruit and full tannin coverage, the echoing finish is inexorable. Baron used to use "magic casks" purchased from Dominique Laurent in Nuits-Saint-Georges but now ages this wine in foudres .

While a lot of the 2012s came in near the bottom of the barrel score, that wasn't the case with the 2012 Syrah Bionic Frog and this beauty flirts with perfection. Inky colored and purple to the rim, it offers extraordinary notes of black fruits, wild mushrooms, smoked earth and salty minerality. These all flow to a full-bodied, thrillingly concentrated, focused, structured and lengthy 2012 that needs 4-5 years of cellaring, and will knock your socks off over the following 15 years or more. (JD)