If you are visiting us for the first time, Welcome! The Wine Spies feature one exceptional wine each day – and we only bring you wines that we ourselves seek out and love. Always, the wines are great. Sometimes greater than great, as is the case with today’s wine from J. Cole Wines.

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Mission Codename: REDACTED!

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Meet with new Wine Spies confidential informant, The Wine Weasel and take delivery of a limited allocation of mislabeled wine – at a steal of a price

Mission Status: Accomplished!

Current Winery: J. Cole Wines

Wine Subject: 2005 Russian River Syrah [CENSORED] Vineyards

Winemaker: Jene Chapanar

Backgrounder:

We can’t tell you where the grapes for today’s exceptional Russian River Syrah were grown. We CAN tell you that a mistake in labeling means that you win big today. You’ll save big and enjoy a wine that drinks well above its price-class.

Read our full mission report, following out detailed tasting profile.

Wine Spies Tasting Profile:

Look – Deep garnet with great clarity and a dark heart with tightly spaced legs

Smell – Deeply layered aromatics with spiced plum, earthy blackberry, black currant, vanilla, cedar, leather and subtle licorice

Feel – Full bodied and round, initially cool then warming and tight with great medium tannins

Taste – Rich and layered, delivering a big hit of smoky plum and then black cherry, blackberry, musky cedar, toasty oak, with delicate leather and cigar

Finish – Thick (not cloying), rich and smoky with a tart-sweetness and tannins that taper smoothly

Conclusion – I first tried this wine several months ago and this time around like it way more. This wine is hearty and rich, but also very well balanced and not heavy-handed in any respect. It’s a big Syrah, to be sure, but it balances this with a fruitiness and an earthiness that coexist in perfect harmony. Wines from this particular vineyard are well-known for their massive character and big prices. The fact that the winemaker had to censor his labels is a big win for our Operatives today as this wine is available -Today Only – at a very special price and in very limited quantities. Clever spies should be able to sleuth out the actual vineyard – once they have their bottles in hand.

Mission Report:

We’d love to tell you what famous grower grew the grapes that made up this great J. Cole Syrah, but then, you know…

Today, The Wine Spies announces the recruitment of a top wine-industry insider that will be an ongoing source of Top Secret industry information. This new Asset is Codename: The Wine Weasel. We will not divulge the actual name of this new Asset here, and only our top Operatives will ever know his or her true identity.

Today, The Wine Weasel brings us a very intriguing wine that only a true industry mole could uncover. The [CENSORED] Syrah from winemaker Jene Chapanar is a wine that was accidentally labeled with the name of a famous vineyard. Technically, this wine was labeled before the grape grower formally agreed to allow Jene to print the vineyard name on the label. Chalk it all up to a misunderstanding, but, nonetheless, this wine could not be sold as having come from [CENSORED] Vineyards.

The Wine Weasel points out that wines made from grapes grown in this famous vineyard sell for as much as 4 times that today’s wine is selling for. Having tasted these more expensive wines, head-to-head against today’s wine, we have to say that we are thrilled to bring you this exceptional wine – at an exceptional price.

Expect The Wine Weasel to sleuth out additional exclusive specials and wine aberrations in the near future. Meanwhile, pick up a few bottles of this wine – and feel like you stole it from us.

J. Cole wines are tenderly hand-crafted in very limited numbers with less than 100 cases of each varietal produced each year. Also, J. Cole wines are only available in select restaurants and Sonoma County wines stores. We got our hands on some just for you.

Wine Spies Vineyard Check:

The grapes for today’s Top Secret wine came from one of the vineyards in today’s satellite photo.