K Vintners Syrah Motor City Kitty 2017

Deep ruby-red. Spectacular wild nose offers most of the Syrah food groups: black raspberry, cured meats, olive, black pepper, coffee and a whiff of balsamico. Wonderfully silky yet penetrating, showing a restrained sweetness to its flavors of dark berries, herbs, olive tapenade and bitter chocolate. Boasts excellent inner-mouth tension and salinity but without any hardness; in fact there's an almost unctuous quality to the wine's silky texture. Finishes with substantial dusty tannins. This wine received an élevage of 18 months (relatively short for the K Syrahs) and still needs a year or two to mellow in bottle. (15% alcohol; all Phelps clones; from a vineyard owned by Efesté that's the highest block farmed by Dick Boushey)

-- Stephen Tanzer