Wine review: Persona Non Grata 2013 Lake County CA red blend

This is from just north of Napa/Sonoma. Their estate red grapes include Zin and Syrah.

I have nothing against a Syrah-Zin blend. Why not? But this wine has a limited appeal. The nose is actually pretty good-it harkons to darker fruits and a nice balance, and in a world where some winemakers don't achieve (or even care about) any aromatics at all (??? the nose discerns 10,000 aromas, and the tongue, six. Duh!), this bouquet is nice to have. But at 14.8% alcohol, the wine is too hot--it doesn't have enough flavors to stand up to all that alcohol. What flavor there is comes off as very dark fruits, and admittedly I'm not a huge fan of black fruit flavors (I tend like the red-to-purple space; for my palate, these grapes are grown in a place too hot for them). I had a filet mignon left over from our first winemaker dinner this past Saturday--so much work--we cooked an 8 lb beef tenderloin, encrusted with dijon-rosemary-cracked pepper, with barley risotto and roasted root vegetables, and served it with my Double-Gold Cab Franc (2019 Seattle Wine Awards) and this was a leftover piece.  It went well enough with this wine--the leftover beef was great, and the wine was just OK with it.

The winery markets this wine as "Persona Non Grata" (meaning, "Napa Valley gets all the attention; BS on that!"), and, as much as I support that sentiment, and as much as I'd love to support any winemaker who makes wine away from the trendy places (as I do), and suffers from the comparison, and enviously eyes Napa's overrated reputation, this wine is just not all that good.  But it's always good to try new wines!