2018 old vine Grenache, Yangarra Estate Wines, McLaren Vale, Australia

100% Grenache Certified Organic/Biodynamic.

Geology: North Maslin Sands (54 million years old) >

Altitude: 200M above sea level 

Tasting Note:

Broody red colour, not quite opaque.

This wine needs time to open up. It is well worth the wait for this Grenache starts to reveal itself the results are delightful.
Lovely perfume of cherry, slight mint, roses and more.
Nice weight, full body, grippy youthful structured tannin, sweet plush fruit, lovely long flavours and clean fresh finish. Elegant and delicious.

Winemaking:The source blocks were 23, 24, 25 and 29 on our single-vineyard estate. Hand- picked and mechanically sorted with 50% whole berries retained and the remaining fruit destemmed. We cold soaked the fermentation tanks for 5-6 days until the onset of a wild yeast fermentation. The open fermenter's underwent a careful regime of plunging and rack and returns. No pressings were used. The wine was kept on yeast lees for 10 months, in 100% older French oak. No fining occurred, just filtration. Bottled in February 2019.”

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Last week a picture was posted on Twitter of vines in Shabo, a large estate that lies to the west of Odesa on southern Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. The image seemed benign at face value but the reality, of course, is that the city of Odesa has been bracing itself for attack by Russian forces. 

 

As COVID-19 conspires with the grimmest of winds and rain to force a societal retreat behind our own front doors, the word ennui springs to mind. The muddle of displeasure is pierced when Natalia hands me a large bulbous glass of a liquid I do not recognise.

 

 

Britain’s lamentable exit

On the eve of Britain’s official departure from the EU, my partner and I decided to explore a small town on the Italian Riviera where thewintry cold doesn’t feel so much like cold war bite.

I had warned my significant other that I would be having an inverse departure party, a release of the sanity valve if you like!

 

Sitting inside the ancient castle walls inside the town of Soave, a short drive from Verona in northern Italy, the unique slightly almond aroma of the indigenous grape, Garganega, rises gently from my glass. The castle sprawls up the side of an extinct volcano that gives the region its variant soil structures that mark out the better quality of Soave wines.

 

Tanisha Townsend decided to move to Paris 4 years ago after regularly passing through the city en route to the world’s most famous vineyards. In fact, it was about 2 years ago at the Printemps de Champagne Bouzy Rouge tasting in Reims that I saw (who we shall now refer to as) GirlMeetsGlass chirpily speaking to her web followers on Snapchat.

 

The cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, the final resting place of Saint James, rises out of the landscape, infested with antiquity. The rambling steep streets give way to shafts of dramatic light, emblazoned chapels, and tightly packed tapas bars, dusty, as old novels pressed together in antiquarian bookshops.

 

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