Guests came to lunch on Saturday. We woke up to rain and the forecast for the day was dismal, but around noon the sun came out and it was relatively still on the water side of the house, perfect for dining jacketless on our gorgeous patio. Puget Sound can be so incredibly beautiful, and unexpectedly this day was. Lunch began outside with artichoke-ricotta crostinis and a Paul Bara Grand Cru champagne. Per the label it was disgorged in like 2018 but it had a very compressed cork with 2008 printed on it, and the flavor/texture could easily have been 2008 vintage. Strange.
The first course was a salad of spinach, spring greens, peas, feta and tarragon dressed with just lemon juice and EVOO which I'd planned for the Marsanne our guests were bringing. What I failed to realize is that this was a really out-there skin contact version, so the food match was a fail but both were good and it didn't matter much. The wine:
2021 Kobayashi Winery Marsanne Skin Contact WeatherEye Vineyard Rattlesnake Hills
Cloudy ale colored, with alluring spice and citrus flavors that changed over time but included earl gray tea, kumquat, dried apricots, cloves and something not unlike the kind of flor that informs a good sherry. Had some tannins too. Unlike anything I've ever had and I absolutely loved it, a fascinator.
The main course was papparadelle pasta in a lamb/artichoke/cherry tomato/mint ragu for two syrahs.
2009 Betz Family Syrah Chapitre 3 Columbia Valley
Aged purple-black color with baked bing cherries, leather, beef and steak sauce. Drink soon.
2021 Kobayashi Winery Syrah Washington
I do not recognize my bottle in the recent notes posted by others on CT. Decanted about four hours. Not painful to drink but it was mildly grapey with dark red fruits and a sour milk-y, lactic background note similar to McClaren Valey syrahs from Australia. Very drinkable but wasted at this early stage of development. The last Kobayashi syrah I had, about a year ago, was a sans soufre 2020, and it was a youthful delight so I was expecting this to show a bit fresher. That was certainly the flavor I had in mind for the match with the pasta sauce. A blend of the two wines actually created the best food match, sacriligious as that sounds.