The Salomon Estate Wildflower Syrah 2020 is a co-fermented Syrah-Viognier from the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, grown on the estate's Finniss River vineyard, where warm days and afternoon breezes off the Southern Ocean keep the fruit ripe but bright. Expect a medium to full-bodied red with dark fruit and pepper rather than sweetness and heft.

Aromatics come first: violets and lavender lifted by the 7.5 per cent Viognier co-fermented with the Syrah, then black cherry, mulberry and a savoury turn of cracked white pepper and dried herb. The palate carries darker fruit than the nose suggests, with cocoa and a faint eucalypt edge running underneath, picked up from twenty months in 300-litre hogsheads, mostly French oak with a little American.

Tannins are fine-grained but present, drawing the fruit into a long, faintly spicy finish, while the acidity retained in this cooler pocket of the Fleurieu Peninsula stops the wine from turning plush. Texture is silky through the middle and firmer at the close, which is where the 2020 shows its cellaring potential.

Serve it with slow-roasted lamb shoulder, char-grilled beef ribs, mushroom risotto or a wedge of aged cheddar. A gentle chill on a warm evening does the peppery side of the wine no harm at all.

Drinking well now with an hour in a decanter, and worth holding through to around 2030.