Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024.

Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024
$50, 14% alcohol, screwcap, McLaren Vale.

‘Old Vine’ here refers to a dry-grown, bush-vine, biodynamic-certified block of grenache that was planted in 1946. It’s fermented wild with 50% whole berries. Some of this wine was left macerating on skins for over two months. It was matured in a mix of amphora, ceramic egg and foudre.

The flavour here is savoury in general and yet it’s driven by a sweet, juicy ripeness. That’s the sleight-of-hand that drives the quality of this wine straight towards excellence. It’s a wine of finesse, and of filigreed tannin, and of juicy, raspberried, come-hither fruit, and yet throughout there are notes of rust, chalk, dried herbs, saltbush and crushed, dry leaves. It’s a ripping drink, decidedly good value in the overall scheme of things, charismatic and charming. 94 points.

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Yangarra Estate is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, founder of The Winefront and mattinson, and former chief editor of Halliday.

When you pick up a wine book and see thousands of top-scoring wines, it’s hard to know which wine to choose. Mattinson guides you through this maze, giving you an honest view of the best Australian wines, the best wine stories, the best wine producers, the best value wines and simply, the best tasting wines. Importantly, Mattinson will tell you about the top-rated wines and also about the underrated wines. In short, Mattinson knows Australian wines inside and out.

Mattinson has been a photo-journalist since 1987. For the past 25 years he’s been a voice that you can trust when you’re looking for the best wines. 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, and is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter. He’s not afraid to put a score beside a wine. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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