Just a quickie as the hand has not totally recovered. Some one-hand-friendly views on Red Blend 2015 by Duncan Savage. This vintage is still available from Handford wines.
Readers with no short-term memory problems will recall I bloody loved the 2017 of this wine. Whilst the 2017 was pure Syrah, the 2015 Savage Red is two-thirds Syrah with small amounts of Cinsault, Touriga Nacional and Grenache.
It claims a booze quotient of 13% and I think that that is pretty accurate. This is an alcohol level I like.
Whereas the 2017 could hold its head high in a field of Northern Rhone reds, the 2015 Savage Red seems firmly planted in the Southern Rhone.
It has nice, savoury, spicy fruit that is somewhere on the plums-to-blackberries-spectrum. There is good but not excessive tannin and acid, but the whole thing seems a bit loosely constructed to reach peaks of style and class.
What the 2015 Savage Red is not is sweet, jammy or vastly overripe, so it is a kind of fantasy-proper-Southern Rhone wine – what you wish they were like! If Chateauneuf-du-Papes were of this style, but slightly better composed and a bit more complex, I would actually buy the stuff from time to time; these days they are all evil filth.
Now I have had a few vintages from Duncan Savage it is clear that he is advancing the quality of his winemaking and wines in leaps and bounds every year. Get thee to Handford and buy recent vintages! Unless you like Chateauneuf but not the headaches and nausea it induces, in which case you will like this!
