What’s the difference between a case of syrah and a case of pneumonia?

I haven't been following the American wine scene at all since some thirty years or so, but there used to be a time when 75% of my cellar was Californian, back in the late 1970's, when I went to camp in Napa, met Chuck Wagner and his dad Charles in Santa Helena, tasted wine with Dr. David Bruce and stood at the long table at Ridge, watching the clouds sail by overhead and tasting umptheen wines.
Syrah, well ... I've lost track whether "Petite Syrah" bears any relation, but I remember tasting a few good ones. And Ridge's "Mataro", isn't that related? Maybe not.
Over the years, my taste has slipped increasingly away from the initial "Cabernet rules" attitude towards the Grenache-Carignan-Syrah-Mourvêdre crowd. Remember how, in the 1970's, Rhone wines (the Grenache ones, at least), were considered an inferior species in the red wine picking order? And how, nowadays, wines like Priorat and Montsant are, often, soooh delicious? The evolution has been tremendous, Spain knows all about that, of course.
Cheers from Belgium,
Paul