Syrah

Red wine grapeFrance, Italy

The style profiled here is a dry, very full-bodied red Syrah wine: dark fruit, pepper, smoke. Typical alcohol is 13.5 to 15%. Serve it at 16 to 18 °C.

Also called Shiraz, Hermitage, Antourenein noir, Candive other synonyms, Shiraz grape.

The grape

Syrah is a crossing of two obscure French grapes, dureza from the Ardèche and mondeuse blanche from Savoie, confirmed by DNA analysis in 1998. That settled a long argument: it is northern Rhône in origin, not Persian, despite the persistent story linking it to the city of Shiraz.

It gives a dark, deeply coloured wine with firm tannin and a distinctive black pepper note that comes from a compound called rotundone. Rotundone is destroyed by heat, which is the key to the grape: cool-climate syrah is peppery, floral, savoury and often smells of bacon or olive, and warm-climate syrah loses the pepper and becomes sweet, plush and chocolatey. The two styles are so different that the trade uses two names for them.

Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage in the northern Rhône are the reference for the cool style, on granite slopes so steep they are terraced. Australia calls it shiraz and made its warm-climate reputation in Barossa and McLaren Vale, though Grampians, Canberra and Hunter Valley work in the cooler register. Washington, Chile's Elqui, South Africa's Swartland and the northern Rhône's satellite appellations are all serious sources.

BuyingCrozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph are the affordable way into the peppery northern Rhône style. For the plush style, look at McLaren Vale rather than the cheapest Barossa.

Style profile

Our rating of a representative wine
Sweetness
Bone dry
Body
Very full
Tannin
High
Acidity
Medium

Sweetness and structure vary with the producer, region and winemaking. These ratings describe the style above; check the label for the bottle in front of you.

Food pairings

Where it grows

Notable wines
Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage
Soil
Stony granite
Flavour
High tannins, high acidity, blackberry, dark chocolate
Medium climate
Mint, eucalyptus, smoked meat, black pepper
Hot climate
Liquorice, cloves, espresso, mocha, dark chocolate

Explore its wine regions

Planting snapshot

2015 observations, OIV 2017 study

OIV recorded about 190,000 hectares worldwide under the reported name Syrah in its 2015 variety snapshot.

Spain
about 20,000 ha (2015)
China
about 1,000 ha (2015)
France
about 64,000 ha (2015)
United States
about 9,000 ha (2015)
Argentina
about 13,000 ha (2015)
Chile
about 8,000 ha (2015)
Portugal
about 6,000 ha (2015)
Australia
about 40,000 ha (2015)
South Africa
about 11,000 ha (2015)

Historical, rounded figures, including all uses of the grape. OIV’s variety study covers 75% of world vineyard area. A country absent from this table may still grow this grape.

Countries that build on it

Similar grapes

Sources