Apsara Cellars Syrah

Tasting notes & discussion 15

Typically $50/bottle from Apsara Cellars
Vintage 2023 from Sonoma Mountain, Sonoma County
Available for AL; AZ; AR; CA; CO; CT; DC; FL; GA; ID; IL; IN; IA; KS; KY; LA; ME; MD; MA; MI; MN; MO; MT; NE; NV; NH; NJ; NM; NY; NC; ND; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; VT; VA; WA; WV; WI; WY
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About Apsara Cellars: “The name Apsara comes from the Sanskrit word for an angelic dancer whose elegant movements reflect the key elements in our wine: Balance, Purity, and Expression. Apsara Cellars has never been the sole product of a draw-by-numbers idea of winemaking.”

Send Urvashi.

TASTING NOTES: “Deep, inky purple in the glass, this Syrah opens with generous aromatics of black pepper, fig, and ripe plum layered over dark berry fruit. Notes of vanilla and toasted coconut frame the nose, while hints of sage add lift and complexity.” (AbV 14.9%, pH 3.7)

VARIETALS: 100% Syrah

BARRELS: 8 Months in 30% New French oak and 70% once-used French oak

PAIRS WITH: N/A

THAT REMINDS ME OF: Apsara — the Sanskrit word for an angelic celestial dancer that gives this winery its name —

There’s a whole category of mythological being I’d describe as “professionally beautiful and kind of terrifying about it.” The apsaras of Hindu and Buddhist tradition fall squarely in this category. They’re supernatural dancers of extraordinary grace, attendants of the heavens, and they show up constantly in classical South and Southeast Asian art — carved into the walls of Angkor Wat in such numbers (there are roughly 1,800 of them depicted there) that archaeologists developed a whole classification system just to catalog their different poses and headdresses. Which is a sentence I love. Somewhere, an archaeologist has a spreadsheet of celestial dancer hand positions.

The interesting wrinkle is that apsaras weren’t purely decorative. In the Mahabharata and Ramayana they get deployed as cosmic distractions — sent by the god Indra to break the concentration of ascetics who were getting too powerful through meditation. The logic being: if a sage meditates long enough without interruption, he accrues enough spiritual merit to threaten the gods themselves, so you send in a celestial dancer and hope for the best. It’s essentially divine counterintelligence. “Sir, this monk has been sitting still for forty years.” “Send Urvashi.”

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How long could you meditate before a celestial dancer would successfully break your concentration?

I'd lose focus before I even closed my eyes

I'd lose focus before I even closed my eyes
Maybe a few minutes if it's quiet enough

Maybe a few minutes if it's quiet enough
I could hold out a while — I've got decent discipline

I could hold out a while — I've got decent discipline
I'm basically unmovable once I'm in the zone

I'm basically unmovable once I'm in the zone
Tell me your best distraction story →

Tell me your best distraction story →

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