Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Grenache Noir
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
Wild fermented. Open tops. Extracted dutifully across a 21 day window. Foudre and eggs for 11 months thereafter. This is a wine of power reigned in by sumptuous tannins, like matrix dots doused with spice and teeming across the mind's eye. More southern Rhône than Gredos, often the inspiration in these parts. Moroccan souk. Goa trail blazing. Darker, danker fruits, clove and assertive tannins ... those gorgeous tannins, trailing the wine to prodigious length. Wow!
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James Suckling
Wild fermented. Open tops. Extracted dutifully across a 21 day window. Foudre and eggs for 11 months thereafter. This is powerful wine reigned in by sumptuous tannins, like matrix dots doused with spice and teeming across the mind's eye. More southern Rhone than Gredos, often the inspiration in these parts. Moroccan souk. Goa trail blazing. Darker, danker fruits, clove and assertive tannins ... those gorgeous tannins, pulling the wine to prodigious length. Wow! Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 High Sands Grenache comes from a unique vintage: it was the lowest-yielding vintage ever made of this wine. The growing/ripening part of the season was cold, and lest we forget the global environment that served to shape us all, for better and for worse. The wine in the glass is so concentrated and tannic; it unfurls as it sits in the mouth and really displays its tannic fortitude with authority and focus. This is a wine that will live for an extraordinarily long time. The fruit is firmly in the pomegranate molasses, black cherry, exotic spice spectrum. It's more about its tannin wrap than its fruit core. Rating: 97+
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Wine Enthusiast
Bright aromas of cherry and cranberry are underpinned by white pepper, savory spice and a slight meaty nuance, with a stony, mineral core. Succulent red-berry flavors are lifted by tart acidity on the midweight palate, and a line of chiseled, textural tannins weaves it all together. This is a still tightly wound vintage of High Sands that should evolve nicely with time in bottle, for a decade or more.
Cellar Selection
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
Known for opulent red wines with intense power and concentration, McLaren Vale is home to perhaps the most “classic” style of Australian Shiraz. Vinified on its own or in Rhône Blends, these hot-climate wines are deeply colored and high in extract with signature hints of dark chocolate and licorice. Cabernet Sauvignon is also produced in a similar style.
Whites, often made from Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc tend to be opulent and full of tropical, stone and citrus fruit.