Admittedly, it had to follow in the shadow of last week's Arnot-Roberts, but this week's Proper Wines 2013 Walla Walla Valley Syrah was a mix of mild satisfaction and mild disappointment. I didn't know anything about this producer, but I'd really enjoyed a Reynvaan "In the Rocks" Syrah, and the CT notes on this wine suggested that it had some of the same character; at roughly half the price ($40) I figured it was worth a shot. 14.8% ABV, deep purple. Divisively aromatic, by which I mean that I thought the nose was very appealingly meaty and olive-y (oliverous? elaiatic?) while Andrea found that greenness unappealingly vegetal, as if there was something underripe, not about the grapes but about the aromas. My disappointment was that, on the palate, the wine just seemed a little pudgy and undefined; there was no dynamism, no sense of anything happening. (Remember when your parents used to tell you to "stop sitting like a lump in front of the TV and go outside and play"? That.) So, in the end, I'd happily trade two bottles of this for one bottle of Reynvaan, or one bottle of this for two bottles of an overperforming $20 weeknight red. Sometimes the middle isn't the best place to be.
More successful was a Day Wines 2014 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, Johan Vineyard. Picked this up at the grand opening of a new, tiny neighborhood wine shop that I pass every day on my walk from work to train. Pale dusky pink in the glass on first pour, and even after a little time, though the hue gets much redder, it's still quite light. The wine is also delicate in style, but appealingly so: it's floral, it's loamy and mushroomy, and it has a core of very pure, bright, tart cherry fruit, which carries it forward in the mouth. It doesn't have an especially complex or long finish, and it seems to me made for drinking now, but it's quite good (if you don't require your Pinot to taste like Syrah). Would I buy more? There's the rub: if I were in Oregon, and could buy it for $33, absolutely. Here in Chicago, though, this was selling for $42. Sometimes the middle isn't the best place to be.