Long romanced as a Persian vine carried home from Shiraz by a crusader, Syrah is in truth a child of the northern Rhône: DNA testing in 1998 named its parents as Dureza, an old Ardèche red, and Mondeuse Blanche of Savoie. It is at home on the granite hill of Hermitage and the steep schists of Côte-Rôtie, where it gives some of the longest-lived reds of France.
Its signature is pepper — the compound rotundone, which Syrah carries more than almost any grape — laid over blackberry, violet and smoked meat on a firm dark frame. In 1832 James Busby carried cuttings to Australia, where as Shiraz it became a national emblem, ripening to a warmer, sweeter opulence in the Barossa. Cool-climate or warm, peppery or plush, it is one of the few varieties equally convincing in two utterly different styles.