Another extremely light pour. This one doesn’t have the garnet of the two Grenaches from last week, it is a black, dusty-red sort of transparent–more pink than anything–purple with a clear rim. People always ask why I dedicate so much ink to what a wine looks like. BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT. It tells you SO MUCH about the wine–even before smelling or tasting it. Dark and expressive in the nose, a grimy concentration of berry and cherry muddled together with a calm briar and a pure, old-world sensation of boots and tobacco, wet linen and rosy charm. The fruit heads almost strawberry-ish with ample air, but it is an elegantly dark bouquet.

This is a beautiful wine. Perfectly robust in the mouth, it doesn’t kill you with acid or tannin–and certainly not heat. The black cherry coats the palate EXACTLY the way the color appears: dark and grainy, concentrated but at the same time transparent and delicate. It is not jammy or cloying or fruit-forward. It’s just beautiful wine. The *rosy charm* I mentioned in the nose is in full effect on the tongue–and is the chubbiest part of this wine. But it’s not chubby. It’s just rich and full while tip-toeing this crazy line with density.

This is quite possibly the world’s most perfect BTG wine. It is easy to drink, robust and complex enough for solo-drinking and light and under-stated enough for food-pairing. There is nothing in this wine to get in the way of ANYTHING on a plate, and the vague trail of perfectly-integrated acidity with non-existent tannin in the plush–but still briary–finish will not steer things the wrong way. It is light enough for summer patio experiences, but packs a sly wallop of geeky goodness. An astoundingly interesting wine, one I could write many more paragraphs on, but I’ll stop. This is a wine I could literally sit and talk about for hours. Not necessarily because of its ridiculous complexity, but because how it’s built. A fascinating wine. And not a simple one.

2016 CRYSTAL BASIN CELLARS Mourvedre El Dorado 13.5

https://crystalbasin.com/