Falernia Syrah Reserva 2007

The holidays and drinking seem to go hand in hand. Although these days, I'll take any excuse to uncork a bottle of wine to try it out.

My sister works at a liquor store (every now and then), and for her Christmas bonus, she got to bring us all the gift of spirits. Christmas spirits, hooray! We hit the giant bottle of Bailey's she brought hard that week between Christmas and New Years, but I have a greater appreciation the two bottles of wine she got for me.

One of those bottles we opened right away, and drank it with Christmas dinner. The Falernia Syrah 2007, a wine of Chile from Elqui Valey. Although she confessed to picking the bottle because she thought I'd like the label, it was, in fact, the perfect wine for dinner. I didn't take enough notes on this particular bottle to tell you the exact flavors, but it paired wonderfully with the turkey dinner. It was full and not as dry as some of the other wines we were drinking (I believe my Dad and Diane had a bottle of Sean Minor). My sister enjoyed it more than I did, I think, and is now exploring the Syrah grape more extensively.

I think it was better with food than it would have been by itself, but even finishing mine (and an abandoned glass at the dinner table, for shame) long after dinner was over, it still went down nicely. I've read that this wine is always better after breathing for about 30 minutes.

We didn't finish the bottle, so I got to try out my wine preserving kit I got for Christmas. I re-opened it last weekend, and finished it as part of my mission to finish all of my open bottles of wine. It still went down pleasantly even after a month of being uncorked. So either my re-stopping kit works really well, or this is a fabulous wine.

Or both!