Orin Swift, the hyper-popular cult winery that in a few short vintages has become a winemaking superstar, has a new wine. It's called Abstract, and its a sort of Rhone-styled blend of Grenache, Petite Sirah and Syrah. It has a really cool label, too.The wines attributes are surprisingly tilted to the black fruit side of the scale. Typically, I would expect a blend like this to have lots of cool blue-toned fruit with a kind of wild brambly texture, but this one has some sour blackberry and some black cherry and currant thrown in. If I had to guess, I'd say that the Syrah (which I believe to have the least presence in the blend, but the actual numbers are nowhere to be found) probably comes from a relatively warm area and is thus driving the wine towards a slightly darker (and higher alcohol; note the 15.7% this bad boy sports, despite the lack of heat on the palate) place than the high-toned world that Grenache usually introduces.
Whatever the case, this stuff is delicious now and can probably stand a couple of years of cellaring. It's relatively scarce this year, but that situation should improve in subsequent vintages. I expect this to become as sought after as the winery's greatest hit, The Prisoner.
To top it all off, Abstract is a great bargain. It's the least expensive wine ever made by Orin Swift Cellars' winemaker Dave Phinney.
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