Favorite Wines of 2008 Part 1

So I've kept track of almost every wine Mary and I have drank this past year, and I'm happy to publish some of our favorites. To date we have finished ~140 bottles of wine this year. Additionally, this year we took a trip to Sonoma and made many visits to wine bars this year. I mention this because although we are not in the wine business or wine professionals we are avid wine drinkers and have a large sample of wines from which I have chosen my favorites. That being said, as everyone else, we do have our biases. In our list of wines about 80% are reds and we tend to like big, jammy reds. That being said here is the first part of our list of favorite wines of 2008.

1. 2004 Garretson Syrah "Bulladoir" from Paso Robles, CA.
It is a HUUUGE WINE (16.7% alcohol) The color is a deep purple almost black in color and it even seems to pour a little bit thicker. This is a mouthful of jammy flavors almost similar to a port. This wine is not for the weak. Big jammy flavors of black berry, raspberry, with hints of mocha and looong finish. I would love to try this wine again in 5-10 years. The average score I found online was 95!!!

We had it with pasta and some of my wife's homemade tomato sauce. This wine would go great with a grilled steak. This was our first great wine of 2008 as we drank it on January 3rd. This exctied us for what would be a year full of amazing new wines and discoveries.

2. 2002 Tobin James Syrah James Gang Reserve
Very similar to the Garretson. I've included this because it seems like most of my favorite wines are big, dark, thick, jammy wines. However, these wines are able to be intense without being too much of a fruit bomb in that it is not too sweet and fruity that I feel like I am drinking fruit punch. Nor are they too tannic where it is impossible to drink.

Also both of these wines are from Paso Robles. We visited the region in 2006 and have loved their wines ever since. They make great Rhone style wines and zinfandels, and since syrah and zinfandel are too of our favorite wines the region is one of our favorites.