2018 Rockford Grenache Dry Country

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 93 points

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  9/8/2023 - Dr S Likes this wine: 93 Points

  My Grenache heart lies in McLaren Vale (South Australia) but one cannot skip nor slide past the Barossa. After all, the oldest Grenache vines (circa 1840s-1850s) in the world still yielding fruit lie there. Current Barossa makers have embraced the the 'new' Grenache zeitgeist without betraying regional, and in some cases, multigenerational family tradition.
  
  The 1990 vintage of this wine introduced me to Grenache. Love at first sight. If memory serves me, I devoured a case in no time. At $10 a bottle, easy to accept Oscar Wilde's maxim that the best way to beat temptation is to yield to it. I parted ways with Grenache a while later, the overdone, overworked ungainly styles not living up to early promise and the wine critics' text.
  
  So how does Rockford, a custodian of tradition, stack up in the new (Oz) Grenache world? I tasted this, the latest release, alongside the 2021 Eperosa Krondorf Vyd (incidentally, Rockford and Eperosa are on Krondorf Rd (and I've just discovered Grocke Rd runs off it - Brett Grocke is Mr Eperosa'). New 'Old School' (Eperosa) v Renewed Old School (Rockford), perhaps.
  
  Short answer: bloody good! Lighter hues as per the variety, with a touch of bricking beyond the rim.
  
  With an hour or two of air, the nose entrances. It's akin to walking into a bakery. An aroma-hit of fresh pastry, pastilles, tiny berries - almost like baked buns dotted with raisins. But the fruit is vibrant, not dried out or raisoned. Raspberry, cola emerge. Sandy notes too (old oak or vineyard, or both?). Like the Eperosa, a sense of the earth or vineyard soil comes through (autosuggestion or not - who cares). Both conventional and exotic - which is what you might want from Barossa Grenache.
  
  I love the palate. Light on its feet but makes a statement, like the best from McLaren Vale. More cranberry/Campari here. Fresh with the right degree of dryness. Gossamer fine tannin - there but when you look again, not there, like the Cheshire Cat. Dig it.
  
  It's on a roll now, but I suspect it's one of those deceptive, slow-burn wines. Seemingly light-medium bodied and ready, but with power and time simmering away. You might have all the watches but this Rockford (like the Afghans) has the time.

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