2017 McLaren Vale Grenache
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The 2017 Grenache is from a wet year, and the harvest was later than many years before it. Yields were quite high in 2017—not just in McLaren Vale but also in Barossa (having just visited there this week and asking many producers who also kindly offered vintage vertical perspectives). The best wines were from the vineyards that responsibly managed those yields and chased quality over quantity. While this is a measure necessary to employ in every season, it is particularly important to adhere to in naturally high yielding seasons. So here, the 2017 Grenache is lighter and more savory than many on the table and is showing more tertiary notes than the 2016 and indeed the 2015 vintages before it. Although conditions were very different, it is showing some of the characteristics displayed in the 2014 vintage. This aside, the wine remains eminently elegant and restrained, with a profusion of exotic spices and dark stone fruits. It's a beauty. 15% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
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Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
The front label also says Toby Bekkers. Fruit grown in Blewitt Springs and Kangarilla (where soils are deep bleached sand and ironstone gravel over orange clay) and Onkaparinga Hills (b rown clay-loam and slaty siltstone). Elevations: Blewitt Springs 98 – 107 m, Kangarilla 240 – 244 m, Onkaparinga Hills 186 – 201 m. Distances from the coast: Blewitt Springs 8.3 km, Kangarilla 17 km, Onkaparinga Hills 8.7 km. The vines are described as '1930s and 1960s heritage (non-clonal) plantings. Hand pruned. Shoot thinned. Crop thinned. Hand picked. Unirrigated.' Hand-harvested on 20 March, 7 April and 23 April. Each parcel was fermented separately with 20% whole bunches added to small open fermenters. The remaining fruit was destemmed but not crushed and machine-sorted to remove shrivelled berries. Cold soaked for five to six days prior to the beginning of extended spontaneous fermentation. Gentle pumpovers. Basket-pressed to aged French oak (500-litre puncheons). Maturation on fine lees with minimal SO2 additions before racking in June 2017 and June 2018. Bottled August 2018. Unnecessarily heavy bottle. Transparent ruby. Quite evolved nose. Big and brawny (in a Grenache context). Heat on the finish. Major impression of candy in a candy store and then some acid and tannin but nothing quite integrated yet. A bit of a bull in a china shop? Seems as though the raw ingredients could be really wonderful and quite subtle but they have been persuaded to go to the limit … 20th-century rather than 21st-century idiom? (JR)
Very impressive intensity of ripe, rich raspberry and blackberry aromas that lead to a palate that has a very fine, intense and powerful feel. Long and focused wild raspberries. Drink or hold. Screw cap.
Aged in old French oak puncheons. Pale ruby colour. There's an oxidative, volatile note on the nose. Hot, ripe, heavy, but not very nuanced. This bottle had a damaged screwcap, so may not have been in ideal condition. (RH)