The 2016 GSM from Scheid Vineyards is a good wine on its way to becoming a wine you want to show off to your snobbiest friends – even though your first thought is that there has been some sort of mistake.
Agitate it with a few quick swirls of the glass and this blend of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedré mocks you, pretending to be a rich, mulled wine. Aromas of baking spices and a berry jam fill your senses, with hints of cured tobacco and a resinous rosemary bite. It doesn’t take long to realize this will be a keen and complicated wine – still young and moody, but with a lot to say.
It embraces your palate with dense, jammy berries balanced by a dry herb medley. There is an earthy depth from which notions of cocoa and tobacco leaf loom. And yet the wine is reserved, as if it has more to show but isn’t quite willing to let you in. The fruitiness carries a cheerful face, the darker aspects are ideas swirling in the background.
This is a wine to buy (they only produced 222 cases) and store. While it is Cannery Row now, in three years it will read like Moby Dick.
SCHEID VINEYARDS, San Carlos and Seventh, Carmel. 626-9463, scheidvineyards.com