Paul Osicka Heathcote Grenache 2024

Paul Osicka Heathcote Grenache 2024
$35, 14% alcohol, screwcap, Heathcote.

Grenache, so the long the grape that would rush up to you at a party and lay a hard smooch on you, has taken a turn over the past decade or two and, in the process, stolen so many hearts. It has done so in the most time-honoured – but least expected – of ways: via a meaningful glance, from across a crowded room, sustained for longer than can be humanly ignored.

Grenache, at its best, is light. It has a twinkle in its eye. It speaks to the unspoken, unpopular truth that joy is better when mimed than when spoken.

In this context, Paul Osicka Grenache is a wine that I’m following, courtesy of the fact that it’s grown on a fascinating, hand-planted vineyard and that Simon Osicka is such a totemic figure in Australian wine or, at least, he is to those in the know. He’s the kind of softly-spoken bear who makes people stop, when he talks, and yearn to listen. He is, in essence, grenache-like.

To the wine in question.

It’s so light. In colour, and in weight. And yet it wants for nothing. Indeed it’s as beautiful a young red wine as you could hope to encounter, for its sheer expression, and fragrance, and joy. There’s more to wine quality, and life, than beauty, but it sure is a good thing to be around, and in this instance it’s more than skin deep. This grenache tastes of blood oranges and red cherries, fennel, roses, pomegranates and the most beguiling array of woodsy spices. It’s just so chipper. It tastes like that one essential moment of your life, probably but not necessarily in your childhood, when everything felt or seemed good, just before the wind changed. I can barely think of a better way to spend $35.
94 points.