After the stellar focus and adherence to quality and typicity this label has shown me over the past half-decade, this wine comes as a bit of a shock. Thin ruby purple-pink, a nose sullen and subdued, with wilted floral and chubby, squished-ant piquant flabbiness of soggy fruit. While delightfully restrained in all aspects, it manages a rubber-glove sort of un-charming vegetal akin to something left in the refrigerator produce-drawer too long. It’s a sordid bouquet, with pleasantness difficult to find. No charming nuances of Grenache seem to escape, though it is not tired–or corked–and no amount of air will rectify. A little used bubblegum fills the *fruit* scorecard–and not much else.
Tasting it causes things to go southward even more. The entry is troubled with a rash of citrus-rind acridity which envelopes any positive interest. A light wash of ripe cherry introduces the middle, before more shocking–“blistering” is more like it–acidity and unpleasant chemical burn eviscerates the palate and chalks out the mouth. And yet: it doesn’t feel like tannin. The finish is meager: all washed-down light berry unable to shine through the choking dearth of under-ripe shrillness and the grasp of acridity. Unpleasant on all counts, this wine is either a) an off-bottle from either end of the bottling run, b) an faulty decision someone *thought* might pan out with bottle-age or c) a statement of un-ripe offensiveness being made. I will be visiting another bottle in the near future to confirm these suspicions. As it sits, this wine is scary at best and insulting at worst. Blind? I would go with Carignan Nouveau or something equally un-imaginable.
2019 THE GRENACHISTA Grenache Noir Mounts Vyd Dry Creek Valley Sonoma Co. 14.3
Stephen McConnell 