2011 Latta Grenache Upland Vineyard

• By Stephen Tanzer
  New Releases from Washington State (Dec 2014), 12/1/2014, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Latta Wines Grenache Upland Vineyard Snipes Mountain Snipes Mountain) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Latta, 5/8/2019

  (Latta Wines Grenache Upland Vineyard) Hello friends. It feels a little silly to call Andrew Latta a buzzy winemaker—he’s been working in Walla Walla for over a decade and a half. His eponymous label, however, is much newer to the Washington wine scene, and it’s just about as buzzy as buzzy can be. We have an exciting trio of wines from Latta today—with exceptional pricing that’s only available for this offer—and a lot of ground to cover. So, without further ado: As we’ve said before, there are many perks to our growing neighborhood of wineries, and this offer represents one of them. This is technically a reoffer. This wine has been sold out for years—the winery is now on the 2015 vintage. Recently, a distributor in another state went out of business and had to return their allotment of 2011 Grenache. Andrew reached out to us first. We have access to the only bottles left of this wine in the world; and better yet, Andrew has given us a one-time-only pricing. Any reorders of this wine—if possible at all—will be at the original $45 price-tag. Excerpts from the original offer: Grenache loves growing in old riverbed soil. Think about Châteauneuf-du-Pape, a favorite home to most of the Rhône varietals that we know and love. The soil there is made up of mostly rocks (known as galets) that have been smoothed over by years of the Rhône river. Well over 70% of the grapes grown in Châteauneuf are Grenache—these grapes love the warm rocks. Here in Washington, many of our river bed soils are at lower elevations, making growing stubborn Grenache grapes a little harder because of cooler temperatures. Grenache can already be finicky to grow, even in the warm, rocky environments that it likes, and can be even more difficult in areas susceptible to freeze. Upland Vineyard stands apart because it’s on the anticline formation of Snipes Mountain. In layman's terms, anticlines and synclines are folds in the grounds that go up and down (usually together) and are created by compressional stress. Synclines sink into the ground while Anticlines project upward, bringing soil that you would normally find at lower elevations up to higher ones. What that means for grape growing is that Upland Vineyard has perfectly-suited-for-Grenache riverbed soils at elevations that prevent freeze and let these grapes mature perfectly. The result is astounding. Andrew and the Upland team were ruthless with yields in 2011, dropping enough fruit that the final yield was a mere 2.2 tons/acre. He used 50% whole clusters (stems and all), and this spent about two years in barrel (neutral 500L puncheons) before bottling. Grenache is light on skin pigments, and in a cool year like 2011, the result is a wine with a delicate pale ruby color. Don’t be fooled. That color belies this wine’s heft (14.7% listed alc) and power. But let’s begin with the aromatics: beautiful, fresh, and lively, with raspberry fruit, and bramble, blossom and pastille all taking a turn. In the mouth, this is a joyful bottle of Grenache, hitting the trinity of berry/rocks/garrigue on a frame that easily melds richness to freshness. This is a lovely, lovely expression of Grenache, with inner mouth perfume and generosity to spare, and a sneaky sense of wildness. Wine Enthusiast (Sean Sullivan): Light in color, this 100% varietal wine was macerated with 50% stems and 50% whole berries before being aged in 500L neutral French-oak puncheons. It's perfumed with dark raspberries, cherry Jolly Ranchers, herbs, lavender, potpourri and mineral. The outrageously supple yet rich, supremely elegant mouthfeel dazzles. 93pts. So, what’s changed? In the past few years since we offered this wine, it has steadily and beautifully evolved into an older wine. While still vibrant and full of spry lift, this is not a young wine anymore. We are looking at almost a decade in bottle—and all of the beautiful intricacies that come along with that. Joyful fruit has allowed room for savories to come into their own with bay leaf, dehydrated orange peel, and pinenuts. The florals have turned from spring to late summer, sundrenched and starting to dry. This is a wine that’s just about to settle into what it was meant to be. It’s a stunner—and should be enthralling for just about everyone, especially those who remember this wine in its youth.