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

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.

More about Campbell Mattinson

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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Neldner Road Shiraz 2021