O vinho Syrah 2005 da Casa Ermelinda Freitas, de Palmela, foi considerado o melhor vinho tinto do mundo pelos enólogos franceses, que saborearam mais de 3 mil vinhos de 36 países.
O vinho de Palmela foi o grande vencedor do Vinailes Internacionales 2008, um evento que se realizou em Paris. O Syrah 2005 foi produzido pela Casa Ermelinda Freitas, sendo que, nos últimos anos, a adega familiar fundada em 1920 conquistou 18 medalhas de ouro, 21 de prata e 14 de bronze em concursos internacionais.
Clube Ornitológico de Setúbal
The name Shiraz and associated legends
It seems that many of the legends of Syrah's origins come from one of its many synonyms - Shiraz.Since there also is a city in Persia/Iran called Shiraz, where the famous Shirazi wine was produced, some legends have claimed that the Syrah grape originated in Shiraz, and was brought to Rhône, which would make Syrah a local French synonym and Shiraz the proper name of the variety.
There are at least two significantly different versions of the myth, giving different accounts of how the variety is supposed to have been brought from Shiraz to Rhône and differing up to 1,800 years in dating this event. In one version, the Phocaeans should have brought Syrah/Shiraz to their colony around Marseilles (then known as Massilia), which was founded around 600 BC. The grape should then later have made its way to northern Rhône, which was never colonized by the Phocaeans.
No documentary evidence exists to back up this legend, and it also requires that the variety later has vanished from the Marseilles region without leaving any trace.
In another version, the person who brought the variety to Rhône is even named, being the crusader Gaspard de Stérimberg, who is supposed to have built the chapel at Hermitage.
Even before the advent of DNA typing of grapes, there were several problems with this legend. First, no ampelographic investigations of the grapes from Shiraz seem to have been made. Second, it is documented that Shirazi wine was white, ruling out the use of dark-skinned grapes such as Syrah, and no known descriptions of this wine's taste and character indicate any similarity whatsoever with red wines from the Rhône. Third, it is highly doubtful if any crusader would have journeyed as far east as Persia, since the crusades were focused on the Holy Land.
The legend connecting Syrah with Shiraz in Iran may however be of French origin, since it is supposed to have been included in a 1826 book called Œnologie Française, although that book used the name Scyras for the grape variety.
Since the name Shiraz has been used primarily in Australia in modern time, while the earliest Australian documents use the spelling "Scyras", it has been speculated (among others by Jancis Robinson that the name Shiraz is in fact a so-called "strinization" of Syrah's name via Scyras. However, while the names Shiraz and Hermitage gradually seem to have replaced Scyras in Australia from the mid-19th century, the spelling Shiraz has also been documented in British sources back to at least the 1830s. So, while the name or spelling Shiraz may be an effect of the English language on a French name, there is no evidence that it actually originated in Australia, although it was definitely the Australian usage and the Australian wines that made the use of this name popular.
Other legends
Another legend of the grape variety's origin, based on the name Syrah, is that it was brought from Syracuse by the legions of Roman Emperor Probus sometime after AD 280. This legend also lacks documentary evidence and is inconsistent with ampelographic findings.
