I ordered the lamb; she had the duck breast, grilled and sliced. I was going to go for the Chateauneuf du Pape, a red from France that would have been the perfect mate for that duck. But my dining companion wanted something big, lush, and local. Plus, it was my birthday dinner and I was in line for something Aquarian: independent, deep, and contrarian. So we went for it: a dark, almost black liquid came pouring out into my glass for the first taste, and the bowl filled up with the scent of blackberries, earth, and a tell-tale, tiny bit of kerosene. Yes, this was a New World version of this varietal, jam packed with black fruit, grilled meat, chocolate notes, and some spice. But it had an Old-World ability to develop over the evening: as we sat, ate, and talked, first the wine buttoned up and showed more structure, including broad shoulders and a muscular frame. Then it relaxed again, letting spill all those gorgeous berry, ripe plum, olive, and bacon fat flavors. What a delicious ride. What could it have been?

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The give-away is that this wine was an alternate choice to the Chateauneuf, which means it’s probably made of one of the key grapes that go into this southern French wine. So we can narrow it down to granache, syrah, or maybe a mourvedre. It lacks the cherry liqueur flavor so characteristic of granache, so let’s eliminate that. It could be a mourvedre, but there are very few New World wineries, even those contrarian ones dedicated perversely to Rhone varietals, that put enough time and resources into a special, expensive bottling of this obscure varietal. Syrah, though, is developing a real following among rock star winemakers, and this wine shows the dark fruit, diesel-y, meaty notes that often emerge from a good syrah, especially from a nice warm climate like California’s. The fact that this wine evolved so nicely should tell you that it’s not super young, but the rich fruit flavors say not old, either. So if you guessed a youngish Californian syrah you’d be right. It came from Robert Biale, a Napa winemaker known for his excellent Zinfandels, under his label Hill Climber, from a vineyard named Rolly Akers, vintage 2003. (It was $90 on the wine list at the Harvest Moon Cafe; I spotted retails prices between $42 and $53.) He lovingly crafted only 250 cases, so don’t blink.