Jonathan Allsopp writes Jonathan Allsopp has worked in cathedral music for over ten years, including at the cathedrals of Hereford, Durham and Westminster. He is currently Assistant Director of Music at Southwell Minster, the Anglican cathedral for Nottinghamshire. Alongside this, he works with several amateur choirs, and is an experienced organ recitalist. He fell head-first into a love of wine almost two years ago, gained full marks in his WSET Level 2 last year, and is, at the time of writing, waiting on his results for Level 3. He hopes to plough straight on into the Diploma.
Syrah and the sacred
There are more flamboyant grapes than Syrah. “Celebrity” grapes. They flirt with you from across the shop, and invite you in with their glitter and glamour. Syrah (or Shiraz, depending on your location and/or preferences) doesn’t need to be like that (although it certainly can be). It lays in the background, quietly stirring, until it peaks your curiosity enough for you to dip your toe in. It doesn’t try to be everything to everyone. It has depth, grace and complexity. Complexity that you can only begin to understand once you drag yourself away from the spotlight of things more obvious, and from paths well-trod.
Syrah, for me, is the grape that opened up a deeper appreciation of wine. It led me to mysterious, ancient places, where wine can smell of smoke, and taste of violets. Somewhere where wine doesn’t feel it has to play to the crowd. Somewhere where fruit often plays second fiddle in wines that are grungy, earthy and meaty. And even beautiful. Syrah is wine that plays in a minor key; wine that is solemn, striking, and soulful.
My day job is as a cathedral organist, accompanying our cathedral choir in seven sung services a week. I play our cathedral’s two pipe organs day in, day out—whether for the grandeur of large civic occasions, or the hush of quiet Evensongs on rainy Tuesdays in November. It is a deeply fulfilling role, and one I am profoundly grateful to be able to do.
The highlight of the liturgical year, without any doubt, is Holy Week, where we mark Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. The progression from Jesus’s triumphant arrival into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, through his trial, suffering and crucifixion, culminating in his rising from the dead on Easter Day, is a completely unique experience, where we are invited to think, consider and reflect. A journey through darkness, where shadows abound, and nothing is as it seems.
Syrah is a shadowy wine. It is as dark and profound as the solemn liturgies of this monumental moment in the Church year. It too is not always as it seems. Haunting, intoxicating aromas dart out of the glass. Spices, meat, olives, deeply-coloured fruit: these all combine into a mystical, sensory melange. Something that speaks to the soul, rather like the events of Holy Week have the potential to do.
The first time I truly listened to Syrah was a bottle of seven-year-old Côte-Rôtie. At first, I didn’t really know what I was experiencing. It felt so different to anything else I had tasted before. But then, as it began to unfurl itself in the glass, like a sinuous line of plainsong echoing around a colossal cathedral, it showed me something both ancient, and alive and kicking. Something melancholic, but with a rhythm and tension. I never saw wine in the same way again.
Of course, Syrah has many faces. You have your Rhône expressions: full of incense, mystery, and solemnity. You have your loud, proud and extroverted cousin from Barossa. And everything else inbetween: Swartland, Hawke’s Bay, Washington, to name just a handful. But no matter the place, Syrah always holds its identity.
I think that’s why Syrah is so profound. It roots itself. A musical pedal point, over which all manner of interpretations show themselves. It makes me think of the finest liturgies, liturgies that don’t explain themselves to you, or feel the need to justify themselves to you. They just are.
I approach Syrah the same way I approach Holy Week: not for easy answers, but for meaning. It rewards contemplation, thought and time. In the world of wine, Syrah may never be the happy medium, the crowd-pleaser. But for those who are willing to listen—really listen—they will find something so much more.
Image by diane555 via iStock.
