Tasting - Les Jamelles Syrah 2011

So I went home last weekend to visit my family and found that my mother, jealous of my wine explorations in Geography of Wine, had 1) signed up for Professor Boyer's Udemy class, 2) bought the same textbooks we use for Geography of Wine, and 3) had subscribed to the Wall Street Journal's "Discovery Wine Club", and so therefore had a box of 15 different wines waiting in our basement. Fortunately I was home for a couple days so we definitely got to explore the collection. Here's the first one I tried:

Name: Les Jamelles
Variety: Syrah 
Region: Pays d'Oc
Country: France
Year: 2011
Price: ~$10.00 ? (This is an estimate found at wine-searcher.com, my mom paid $69.99 for the box of 15 different wines as part of the Discovery Wine Club introductory promotion)

Winery review: "'Les Jamelles'" Syrah is a deep ruby red, with flavors of ripe raspberries and blackberries joined by cloves, cinnamon, and cedar."

My review: I definitely noticed the deep red color on this wine. I thought it had a raisin-y (which I later found out from my mother was black currant) smell on the nose with a big hit of astringency. I first tasted it alone and was surprised that it was sweet! I noticed hints of honey and black currant. I was really turned off by it initially, and I slowly got used to its oddness as I kept drinking.

I tasted this also with Comté cheese, which drastically cut the sharpness of it. The strong taste of the Comté also helped reduce the horrible raisin/black currant taste that I didn't appreciate so much.

Overall, I gave this one a big NOPE.