Earlier this week, I had one final evening class to finish up my grad program, and I was looking for a wine that would be waiting for me when I got home, ready to envelop me in its warm embrace. After perusing my CellarTracker inventory, I settled on the Sequel. Other tasting notes made it sound like the kind of rich, celebratory wine I was looking for, and at 14.7% alcohol, it looked like more of a cocktail wine than a dinner wine. In my case, it served as a digestif.
Rating: 4
Beautiful, evolving nose: first blackberry liqueur and grilled bread with butter; then bacon and smoke; then cocoa and funk, moving towards briney olives. Moderate acid and medium-low tannins. This is what a well-made, well-integrated, high-octane Syrah smells and tastes like, with oak as a supporting actor and not playing the lead role.
Long Shadows is a project brought to life by Allen Shoup, former CEO of Ste Michelle Estates. His vision has been to bring established, world-class winemakers to the northwest, to make wine with the best fruit Washington has to offer. Sequel is the Syrah project, and the consulting winemaker is John Duval. Duval made his name in Australia with Penfolds, but after stepping down in 2002, he was looking for his next great challenge. The “sequel” to his life’s work has been his collaboration with Long Shadows, and he has made Sequel since the 2003 vintage.
This normally retails in the $55 range, so when it showed up on Winebid for $30, I pounced. That, as it turns out, was a good decision.
This site is dedicated (mostly) to the wines of Washington state. Hi. I'm Paul Zitarelli. That's me in the picture. I'm the one that's neither female (my wife Kelli) nor feline (our cat Smoke Bomb)... 
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