R Red · 2 regions
Two regions on this site grow Syrah seriously, and they sit at opposite ends of what the grape does — which makes it an unusually clean comparison to travel.
— What changes between them
The Northern Rhône is its origin and its most extreme expression of site: granite terraces pitched at up to sixty degrees, appellations measured in low hundreds of hectares. Stellenbosch grows it in a warmer maritime climate on a far larger scale, and calls it either Syrah or Shiraz depending on the style being aimed at.
FR France
Granite terraces stacked above the river, and Syrah at its most serious in a very narrow strip of land.
ZA South Africa
Cape Dutch farms under granite mountains, an hour from a city, with harvest in the European winter.
Several of these sit close enough to combine — see the fourteen-day routes, or put any two side by side with compare.