A Tribute to Grace Paicines Ranch Grenache 2023

Mattinson review of A Tribute to Grace Paicines Ranch Grenache 2023.

A Tribute to Grace Paicines Ranch Grenache 2023

This was a barrel sample when I tasted it in the Paicines Ranch vineyard in early May 2025, and the bottle image above isn’t exactly right – the colour scheme is reversed – but you get the idea. I’m not in the habit of reviewing barrel samples but this wine presented so beautifully that I had to say something. It’s so wonderfully fresh, vibrant, fruity and energetic and yet so too is it complex with spice, smoke, mineral and flowers. There’s a wide spread of tannin here, ultra fine grained, an emery board with an urgency, and for all this it maintains its sheer, pure, raw grape-like quality. If this wine makes it safely into bottle then we have here a wine of keen finesse, and individuality, not to mention beauty.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of the highly respected The Winefront site.

Mattinson has been an independent wine critic and photo-journalist since 1987. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the prized Best Australian Sports Writing Award.

Mattinson, who is 100% independent, puts a score out of 100 on every wine that he reviews. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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