Mar 23 2008
Cycles Gladiator - Central Coast 2006 Syrah
I was cruising the wine department at the Marion Hy-Vee tonight in search of a “cheap, interesting” wine to try. The Cycles Gladiator 2006 Syrah was on sale for $7.99 that qualifies as cheap! The label has an artistic nude woman floating behind a winged bicycle. I’m pretty sure that qualifies at interesting!
According to the label, “The invention of the bicycle ushered in a new spirit of freedom during the late 19th century. The Golden Age of Cycling reached its pinnacle in 1895 - that same year French printer G. Massias unveiled one of the great Parisian art posters advertising a fashionable new bicycle: ‘Cycles Gladiator’. His famed artwork now graces the bottles of our classic wines from California’s Central Coast. His mythological image of the ‘winged bicycle’ captures the stylish grace, beauty, and unfettered freedom of our hillside vineyards. Let Cycles Gladiator whisk you away for the ride of your life.”
This wine has a very deep dark purple color. So dark that where I touched the underside of the cork it stained my hands. I can’t pick up any particular fruit notes that stand out and can be identified. In fact aroma wise there really isn’t much I can distinguish at all. Upon tasting it there is a definite pepper note and a good oaky finish. Sadly I’m not impressed. If it had a bit more of some kind of berry to stand up along side that pepper I think this would be a much better wine. It isn’t “bad” but even at $7.99 I won’t likely be sampling this one much more.
A quick web search turned up the Wimbledon Wine Company page with their description of the wine. We agree on the cracked pepper and oak but I never found the “raspberry and plum aromas”. I recognize only a couple of the other wines listed on their website’s sidebar. I’ll make it a point to try and find some of their other Monterey and Paso Robles vintages that apparently “have gone into some of the most awarded wines in the world”. I’ll report back on what I find.
Cheers!
-Andrew
