2020 No Girls Grenache

Community Tasting Notes (3) Avg Score: 90 points

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  4/3/2024 - KPB wrote: 87 Points

  Grenache is a curious grape and one aspect is how it behaves when exposed to oxygen. I’ve seen this in the Rhône, but not often in the US. This bottle was light on opening, like a rose, yet today (24 hours later) has become much darker, showing a blackish tint. The nose evolved quite a bit too: muted on opening, but much more complex and extroverted today, showing strawberry and red licorice, violets, scorched earth. The palate was dull and sour on opening, but after a day shows more balance, the vinegar impression is gone, and I find strawberries and a bit of spice.
  
  All this makes this a hard bottle to rate. Certainly, it needs some years to evolve. Once the wine is really ready to drink (this vintage, I mean), I’m visualizing a lighter style of Grenache similar to what you find in the Spanish mountains or in an area like Vacqueryas, for younger vines that tend to give a somewhat excessive yield unless green fruit is dropped, and that haven’t yet developed the really deep, root systems Grenache needs in a hot dry climate. So this probably ripened a bit too quickly, and the fruit didn’t mature as much as you ideally want. The same vines at age 25 could give a wine similar to Charvin’s CDP, but right now the stronger similarity is with Commando G, a wine from Spain that is very trendy but in fact not my favorite. There are people who imagine Commando G to be Rayas, yet cheap. But they are being unrealistic about what a truly great Grenache tastes like when young. This, at any rate, is how Commando G used to taste early in the story of that vineyard and producer, and right on release.
  
  I’m going to score this 87 based on where it is today. Light, drinkable, but too tart to really enjoy without food and lacking the midpalate concentration you look for in a mature Grenache wine. At maturity I would expect a darker, spicier wine, but perhaps still excessively sour. Even so, I might raise my score to 89 or 90, if the spice you want to see on Grenache emerges here. But I think the winery and vineyard has potential and that the issue is some mix of a hot summer and a young vineyard. Not every summer will be hot, and the vines should dial in as they mature. At that point, with full maturity and low yield, we could see something special.
  
  I myself might not wait to find out: I can easily find Grenache reds better matched to my taste from the Rhône.

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  4/1/2024 - thirdeye99 Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Beautiful wine.

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  3/31/2024 - tigmon wrote:

  Made Easter a fine time

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