2017 Charles Smith Wines K Vintners Tempranillo El Jefe Stoneridge Vineyard
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Tasting notes
Bright, deep medium red. Dark cherry, licorice, minerals and hints of charred oak and smoked meat on the rather savory nose. Dense, fine-grained and smooth but with lovely clarity and energy to its ripe cherry and licorice flavors; saline more than sweet. Not particularly nuanced today; in fact, my sample tightened up with air, suggesting that it really needs a year or two of patience. A distinctly savory Old World style of Tempranillo, this juicy midweight finishes with noteworthy breadth, serious but ripe tooth-dusting tannins and excellent length. This one grew on me.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
Opening to a juicy frame of dusty black raspberry, dark cherry and plum, the 2017 El Jefe Tempranillo Stoneridge Vineyard offers sweet oaky spices with a dusty minerality of baked clay. Medium to full-bodied, the wine offers a brilliant display of precision with soft leather tones that melt into savory umami characteristics on the long finish. It’s fresh and shiny now, but I think I would prefer this after 10 years of age in the bottle.
All destemmed and brought up in 40% new French oak, the 2017 Tempranillo El Jefe is killer wine that has lots of classic Tempranillo spice and savoriness as well as a great core of fruit, integrated oak, medium to full body, and incredibly polished, silky tannins. There are only 244 cases, but it’s beautifully done. It’s already drinking nicely, yet it should easily evolve for a decade. This is what I call a stacked lineup from K Vintners, and the team of Charles Smith and Brennon Leighton continue to make brilliant wines. The lineup is broken up into multiple brands today, with K Vintners focusing primarily on Rhone varieties. The Wines of Substance (or just Substance) label are the Bordeaux based wines, then you have CasaSmith, Sixto, B. Leighton, and now Golden West.