2023 GRENACHE DAY 6 PACK
2023 GRENACHE DAY 6 PACK
150-year-old bush vines in the Angaston Foothills, a rare treat.
I’ve dug into the cellar to offer a limited vertical release of my Angaston Foothills Grenache to celebrate International Grenache Day and the release of the 2021 vintage.
For $350 receive a 6-pack containing:
1 bottle of each vintage of Single Vineyard Grenache from 2016 to 2021. (The first vintage carried a different label but is from the same vineyard.)
I only have tiny amounts of the back vintage wine, so there are only six 6-packs available of this Grenache Day offer.
Some quick notes on each of the vintages, they are all ready to drink now but I’ve given some tips if you want to age the wines ahead:
2016 - slightly developed but still with good fruit sweetness, firm tannin, balanced acidity and structure with 3-5 years ahead.
2017 - dark, bunchy tannins, cherries and strawberries with great density and still a lot of life left, but a great and impressive drink now.
2018 - sweet fruited, cherry cola, with a deeper and richer profile reflecting the warm vintage, great now for impact or wait another 3-5 years.
2019 - light and more ethereal, this is delicate strawberries with balsamic, umami with a more savoury profile, firm tannins and bright acidity. One to drink now but it will cellar well over the next 3-4 years.
2020 - youthful with strong bunchy tannins, black cherry and cola and just starting to develop. Has power and presence, one to tuck away if you like aged Grenache.
2021 - black cherry, sweet fruited and spicy with lean and sinewy tannins and a hint of musk stick, orange and vermouth like spice and interest. Nice to enjoy the youthfulness now or over the next 5 years.
REVIEWS FOR THE PREVIOUS VINTAGES
2020 Vintage - 94 Points
Dark cherry, choc-cherry, a kind of sweet, supple character to this wine. Feels very bright and fresh, fresh and bright to finish. There’s a sense of grenache 101 but the detail here elevates and the tension and tannin delivers grenache of great pleasure and verity.
Mike Bennie, Wine Front
2019 Vintage - 95 Points
From a 150-year-old vineyard;a red sand site. Matured in older oak barrels. JC feels very much like a grenache specialist. If you like Adelina, then JC should be in your zone , I often think (or vice versa).
Tense and taut, huge perfume, serious tannin profile, Italianate, green herb-flecked, dried fig and very ‘crushed rock minerally’. Seriously dry, spicy finish, dark cherry fruit before that, some cola too. Incredible structure and length here. And freshness and lift from amaro-laced acidity. Feels of old vine with concentration and detail yet winemaking restraint and structure built in. Superb example of understated Aus grenache.
Mike Bennie, Wine Front
2018 Vintage - 92 Points
It’s certainly open for business but assertive-but-fine-and-integrated tannin will keep it firmly in place fort some years. It tastes of ripe raspberry, earth, caramel and tea and while fruit-sweet the flavours still have a spread to them. It’s essentially inviting but it’s complex. That said it’s the nature of the tannin structure here that really elevates the wine’s quality.
Campbell Mattinson, Wine Front
2017 Vintage - 94 Points
Fancy bottle. 100% whole bunches from a vineyard planted over 150 years ago. Spicy, malty, blackberry and raspberry, fresh mint and sage, new leather. Texture is very good here, with a suede-like feel and density to tannin, red and black berries, a chocolate richness, rosy mouth-perfume, choc-cherry in the aftertaste. Comes over almost like a bold Beaujolais, though that’s only meant as an aside, rather than definition. Compelling wine. So nicely done.
Gary Walsh, Wine Front
2016 Vintage - 94+ Points
A grenache from the Angaston Foothills of Barossa Valley – for those seeking such intel, the vineyard/vines are about 150-years-old. It is all whole bunch fermented and hangs out in old oak for its pre-bottle existence. The wine packs plenty of interest and high drinkability. Strong perfume of dark cherries, plum with whiffs off green herbs, brambles and faint sarsaparilla. The palate has the moody slouch to it, with dark fruit, wishes of chewy tannin, flicks of pepper and sage with a chomp of salt bush to close. It’s a sexed up grenache in weight, texture, complexity, far away from fruity, ‘pinot of South Australia’-styling. Really like it.
Mike Bennie, Wine Front