Cayuse Armada Vineyard Syrah 2016

From the moment you stick your nose in the glass, you are immediately struck with something special. The 2016 Syrah Armada Vineyard has fantastic focus on the nose, with black fruits and a grippy core of minerality, revealing some soft truffle tones and black spices along the way. Full-bodied on the palate, the wine shows an impressive weight and continues to gain in breadth and depth, expanding and unfolding on the mid-palate. Beautifully structured flavors of cured meats and peppercorn evolve with incredible mineral tension and dusty red fruits, and the wine ends with a long, thought-provoking finish. The Armada Syrah is collector-worthy. The 472-case production leaves me speechless.

A wine that's held back three months in barrel and then held a year in bottle (as is the GOK), the 2016 Syrah Armada Vineyard saw 70-80% stems and 15% new oak (both demi-muids and foudre). Slightly deeper ruby in color, it has a mix of both red and blue fruits, salt, violets, damp earth, and smoked earth. Deep, tight, backward, but just loaded with potential, it needs 3-5 years of bottle age and will be very long lived.

Aromas of potpourri, smoked meat, earth, cracked pepper and lily lead to a dense, rich palate with intense fruit, savory and floral flavors. The palate shows more overt density than the other wines from this vintage, while remaining lively, energetic and exquisitely balanced. Potpourri and smoked meat linger on and on. Best after 2024.

Healthy medium red, with moderate saturation. Musky black raspberry, red cherry, game and red licorice on the nose, lifted by a floral topnote; more red fruit in character than the Bionic Frog. Intensely flavored and energetic, displaying a penetrating spicy quality to its flavors of red cherry, raspberry and wild herbs. For all its verve, this ripe but classically dry Syrah is also wonderfully silky. Large-scaled but still tightly wound, finishing with fine-grained tannins, terrific rising floral length and late notes of wet soil and bacon. The Armada vineyard is located next to La Paciencia. (from vines planted in 2001 at 6 by 4 spacing; 10% new oak)

Expressive and slightly racy, with multilayered blackberry, black olive, stony mineral and bacon fat accents that build structure toward big but fine-grained tannins. Best from 2021 through 2027.