2019 Toby Bekkers Grenache

Community Tasting Notes (5) Avg Score: 93.5 points

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  9/6/2023 - graemeg wrote:

  NobleRottersSydney - Grenache Sth Aust (Fix, St James, Sydney): {screwcap, 14.5%} [Gordon] Such a reticent nose – it’s quite the wallflower. Faint blackberry fruit and some syrupy spice appear fleetingly on the tautly-wound palate. Medium weight, low/medium powdery tannins, medium acidity. I’m guessing this will blossom with time, although the double-decant two hours earlier doesn’t seem to have done much to open it up. At least the medium/long finish augers well, albeit a very subtle nod to longevity. Seems a very serious sort of wine; the last sort of thing you associate with Australian grenache.

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  11/7/2022 - PabloEscobark Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Wonderfully fruit forward, with a late palette of strong and round tannins.

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  6/23/2022 - chatters wrote:

  GT Wine Magazine Top Tasting Grenache (Mille Vini, Surry Hills): Wild ferment lends a bit of wood glue and volatility, with agitation, it shows some red berry compote. That volatility translates to the palate as well, fruit is slightly ‘stripped’. Pity as I’ve had good experiences with this producer before.

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  3/17/2022 - Rote Kappelle Likes this wine: 94 Points

  It will, no doubt, come as a surprise to those unfortunate, brigand minds who follow my prose that I am not entirely convinced by Grenache as a single varietal. However, this wine could go some way to changing that.
  
  This wine puts me in mind of French Napoleonic hussars and, especially, of their greatest leader, General Antoine Louis de Lasalle. I can barely think of greater praise and it must be remembered that I am no hussar - in those days, as a big man, I would have been on a big horse and ridden proudly as a Cuirassier, or Horse Grenadier. Our straight blade speaks of our nature; not for us the high cockalorum of the sabre, the pelisse and the cockchafer. The colour of this wine is Grenache ruby, but clear and bright, like the eye of a drunken hussar. There is precious little fading of colour to the rim, like the ardour and courage of the true hussar.
  
  We move now to the bouquet. Consider of Lasalle:
  
  "At the Battle of Remedieh, he chopped both hands off a Mameluke who was fighting General Davout, saving his life. He then overthrew several Mamelukes, broke his sword over the head of Osman Bey, broke a pair of pistols while defending himself, took the sword of a wounded dragoon, returned to the mêlée, rallied his troops, restored the fight, and drove the enemy to the desert."
  
  This wine, too, speaks of the hot sun, sands and the exotic east. There is a touch of Turkish Delight (rum tum tum!), some spice and strawberry and then there is some wonderous strong stuff, surely gunpowder, grapeshot and the very smell of war! You might sense it as a touch of earth and smoke. Who cares? It is good!
  
  "I shall arrive at 5 a.m.; I shall order a pair of boots; I shall make my wife pregnant, and I shall depart" So said Lasalle of his plans for a brief trip to Paris amidst the hell of the Peninsula War. Thus, speaks the palate of this wine. If drinking it does not inspire you to similar things you must surely be deceased. Never for you a membership of Lasalle's famed 'Society of Alcoholics'.
  
  Prosaically, one can speak of great length and admirable intensity. The tannins are fine and ripe and support the wine beautifully, just like a well made saddle/woman. The fruit is ripe but not jammy, or that bane of Grenache - porty but without sufficient stuffing. I like the background elements of earthiness, tar and sand.
  
  So, really a very fine wine; a Grenache to make the sceptic feel like Lasalle on his way to short leave in Paris. I have little hesitation in rating this as 'outstanding' on the CT scale. I suppose a harder marker might rate it at the top end of the 'excellent' rating, but they would be miserable creatures, doubtless clerks in the civil service counting pennies, or the kind of people who listen to Cold Play and think it's music by humans.
  
  Get this wine, drink it, cellar some perhaps, but enjoy every drop.
  
  I can't leave without mentioning something of Lasalle's end, which was a glorious death in battle leading a charge, at the carnage that was the battle of Wagram. On the night before the battle he opened his case to find his favourite pipe broken, as was a bottle he planned to drink and a glass his beloved wife had used. As a result of these omens, he told his aide-de-camp, "I will not survive this day". He wrote a letter to his wife that read: "Mon coeur est à toi, mon sang à l'Empereur, ma vie à l'honneur" (My heart belongs to you, my blood to the Emperor, my life to honor).
  
  Think of the greatness of a man who came from the nobility but embraced the revolution, who lived life with passion and who died as one should. He would have loved this wine. If you don't embrace great ideals, live your life to the fullest and face the coming end with resolution you are a zero and you certainly don't merit the great risks involved in making great wine.
  
  Not sure I am a 40 character, hashtag man. Not sure I care a damn.

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  5/10/2021 - LindsayM Likes this wine: 96 Points

  From Wikipedia
  The characteristic notes of Grenache are berry fruit such as raspberries and strawberries. When yields are kept in check, Grenache-based wines can develop complex and intense notes of blackcurrants, black cherries, black olives, coffee, gingerbread, honey, leather, black pepper, tar, spices, and roasted nuts. When yields are increased, more overtly earthy and herbal notes emerge that tend to quickly fade on the palate. The very low-yielding old vines can impart dark black fruits and notes of figs and tar with many traits similar to the Italian wine Amarone.
  
  This wine to me had the perfect balance promoting the red fruits of raspberry and strawberry with lots of spice notes and citrus of blood orange
  Colour was bright translucent ruby crimson edges
  Responses well to aeration , great purity of fruit , fantastic florals long silky finish . Love to have this up against the Vanguardist Grenache
  No change on day 2

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