Yes, Syrah!

I picked up a dry-aged rib steak and grilled it this evening.
The wine was Wellington Syrah '09, which has a sticker on the bottle saying it won a gold medal at the harvest fair. It's a very pleasant syrah in a (thankfully) restrained style, and fairly low in alcohol, about 14.5%. Excellent length and a smooth finish. The pepper is restrained, you almost have to look for it. I think Chris Loxton was still involved with making their wines back then.
The steak was good, too.
Edit: I looked it up in my brand new wine database that I just got working today. 13.9% alcohol.

[David M. Bueker]

Says something about the times we live in, where you can call 14.5% "fairly low alcohol."

Of course there are now more than a few Syrah made that clock in between 12.5% and 14.0%, so the bar is thankfully lower than it used to be!

Says something about the times we live in, where you can call 14.5% "fairly low alcohol."

Sure. But perhaps also the subset of wines that John drinks.

I still find 14.5% to usually be painfully high. I can tolerate it in some examples of Barolo and I guess some CA Syrah, but rarely my favorite and it strikes me as the upper upper limit.

Lots of CA Pinot Noirs are in the mid 14s, and it's hard to find a Zin under 15. Heck, there are "gold medal" Chards in the 14s!

[David M. Bueker]

And I try very hard to avoid them, with a few notable exceptions.