K Vintners Royal City Syrah 2018
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Winemaker Notes
Aromas of wildflowers, bark, sarsaparilla, pottery studio, cherry compote, undergrowth, forest floor. On the palate, it oozes with flair running the gamut from tree fruits, plums, cherries to an array of herbs and spices. Long and silky, ethereal. A dream.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Lots of lavender, cured meats, loamy earthy, and pepper as well as both red and darker fruits emerge from the 2018 Syrah Royal City, easily one of the richest, most powerful Syrahs in the lineup. Full-bodied and concentrated, with loads of meaty, gamey, spicy nuances, this rock star of a Syrah offers loads of pleasure today yet is going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and cruise for another 10-15 years in cold cellars. It's a ripe, sexy, yet again, incredibly savory and meaty Syrah that could come from nowhere else!
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James Suckling
An explosion of fresh herbs and spice on the nose with notes of baked blackberry, dry stone and cardamom. Full-bodied with fine, structured tannins and so much delicacy and nuance. The palate feels expansive and wide-reaching with so much depth of flavor and wonderfully ripe fruit. Balanced acidity and wet-stone minerality keep the palate going and going. Hot paprika, roasted red pepper and white peppercorn add intense complexity. Excellent.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Magenta in the glass, the 2018 Syrah Royal City offers a lighter expression of Syrah with a firm notion of dusty black cherry skin, notions of teriyaki beef jerky and dusty flowers with smoked plums before a delightful petrichor note lifts from the glass. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is loaded with umami sensations and firm mineral tension on the palate, with a dusty plum blossom essence that somersaults across the mid-palate with a textually pleasing mouthfeel. It’s a robust and pleasing wine without being overdone or offering a heavily weighted or over-oaky expression that may sometimes distract from the sincerity of sense of place. The wine glides to a long, evolving finish and lingering stemmy flavor with fresh red berries and soft florals.
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Wine Spectator
Bright and snappy, with vibrant and floral cherry and blueberry flavors, which gather notes of grilled herbs and smoky spices on the way toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now.
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Located at the base of the Blue Mountains in Walla Walla Washington, K Vintners opened its doors to the public on December 3rd, 2001. The property at 820 Mill Creek Road where the winery sits was homesteaded in 1853 with the adjacent farmhouse built in 1872. The winery grounds with Titus Creek flowing through the lawn and the old pioneer planted trees, is a little slice of heartland Americana. The Winemaker: He loves to drink wine! Charles Smith, proprietor and winemaker, comes to Walla Walla after 11 years in Scandanavia. Originally from northern California, he has been involved with wine personally and professionally his whole life. And did we forget to mention... he loves to drink wine! The Vineyards: K Vintners is producing wines from 2 distinctive viticultural zones: Wahluke Slope and Walla Walla Valley. Each of these areas are unique and awesome for Syrah and the Field Blends produced. In April '02 two seperate blocks of vineyards were planted to Syrah adjacent to the winery in the rocky dry creek beds that run through K Vintners property.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
A large and geographically diverse AVA capable of producing a wide variety of wine styles, the Columbia Valley AVA is home to 99% of Washington state’s total vineyard area. A small section of the AVA even extends into northern Oregon!
Because of its size, it is necessarily divided into several distinctive sub-AVAs, including Walla Walla Valley and Yakima Valley—which are both further split into smaller, noteworthy appellations. A region this size will of course have varied microclimates, but on the whole it experiences extreme winters and long, hot, dry summers. Frost is a common risk during winter and spring. The towering Cascade mountain range creates a rain shadow, keeping the valley relatively rain-free throughout the entire year, necessitating irrigation from the Columbia River. The lack of humidity combined with sandy soils allows for vines to be grown on their own rootstock, as phylloxera is not a serious concern.
Red wines make up the majority of production in the Columbia Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant variety here, where it produces wines with a pleasant balance of dark fruit and herbs. Wines made from Merlot are typically supple, with sweet red fruit and sometimes a hint of chocolate or mint. Syrah tends to be savory and Old-World-leaning, with a wide range of possible fruit flavors and plenty of spice. The most planted white varieties are Chardonnay and Riesling. These range in style from citrus and green apple dominant in cooler sites, to riper, fleshier wines with stone fruit flavors coming from the warmer vineyards.