02 K Vintners, Cougar Hills Syrah

I can smell the vineyard in the 02 Cougar Hills Syrah -- fresh, wet, minerally soil. Wafting plum blossoms. Gobs of fruit on the palate. Superripe sweet plum, blackberry, and dark cherry compote -- long and full, but never cloying. Not extracted -- optimized. Secondary flavors of toasted butter, flowery Tahitian vanilla, and fresh white and black pepper. Glycerine texture broods, cut barely by tingly acid and exotic spice. Tertiary flavors of something so close to meat fat, I'm ready to call it just that; the gaminess yields to the true fruit that tastes like it's still ripening in my mouth. Wondrous. That tease of meat is somehow more powerful, more striking, than what the flavor could have been had it come out in full force. Lavendar and violets.