My wife and I recently visited Luma on Park in the trendy Park Avenue section of Winter Park, Florida. We were in the mood for a red wine to pair with Luma’s sophisticated farm to table menu, but it was a warm Saturday night and we’d been by the pool all afternoon – so a heavy tannic red was definitely not our first choice.

While we perused Luma’s wine offerings, we started thinking about a prior trip to Nevis and how southern Rhone blends tended to dominate the local wine lists down there. In the warm and humid late-spring weather of Nevis, it seemed that Chateauneuf-du-Pape was the go-to pairing with the flavorful Nevisian cuisine – and every sommelier we encountered seemed to lean toward such a versatile blend.

So, with that type of warm-weather pairing in mind we selected a 2012 wine called “The Professional” from Slacker Wines, a second label from Linne Calodo Cellars in Paso Robles (which met the approval of our clearly wine-loving Romanian waitress). The Professional is a Syrah-heavy GSM blend (the 2012 is 47% Syrah, 38% Grenache and 15% Mourvèdre), and according to the winemaker was “free-hand” blended and aged in a combination of neutral oak (90%) and new oak (10%) for 18 months.

Paso Robles is located between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Slacker Wines is located on the western side of Paso Robles. Western Paso Robles is known for its clay loam and calcareous soils and sunny and hot growing season. You can taste the influence of that warm climate in this blend – The Professional is definitely fruit forward and balances its medium acidity with a higher alcohol content (14.5%).

Syrah provides underlying structure, jammy dark fruit and elegance to The Professional, Grenache lends intriguing spice, balancing red fruit and higher alcohol and Mourvèdre contributes subtle tannins and length. On the nose there’s cinnamon, allspice and cedar. On the palate there’s a rush of raspberry, plum and blackberry leading to a pleasant finish of toasty spice and sweet tobacco. Thanks to its dominant Syrah, there’s a roundness to The Professional that makes it quite enjoyable to sip, but it also possesses enough spice and acidity to be very food-friendly.

I also admired The Professional’s simple black and white label, which incorporates a photo from Philip Andelman (whose photography provides interesting insight into the “rock and roll lifestyle” of famous musicians such as Jack White, The Beasties Boys, Jay Z and Beck). Nice touch.

Cheers!

Suggested pairing:

 Indian Summer – Sidney Bechet and his New Orleans Feetwarmers (1940)