Reed Wines Alexia Grenache 2023
Reed Wines Alexia Grenache 2023
$43, 13.8% alcohol, screwcap, Barossa Valley.
You can tell a lot about a cook by how they make an omelette and, similarly, you can tell a lot about a winemaker by how they make grenache. Sierra wasn’t handed access to the 150-year-old biodynamically-grown vines of Schlieb’s Garden Vineyard at Vine Vale in the Barossa Valley, she had to use all her wit and smarts, but she now makes a wine named Alexia Grenache each year. This is a win for Sierra and a win for Australian wine. “I would call this Australia’s gamay. It’s a self-regulating vine. The first thing grenache wants to tell you is the soil that it’s on. Which is what gamay does.” This wine is a month on skins, a year in barrel, and is never racked or not until bottling. “This vineyard is where my obsession with sand started. It’s picked in flip flops.”
The 2023 Reed Wines Alexia Grenache is a piece of fine bonework. It tastes like gossip, all juicy details and home truths. The glory of this wine is that it’s the variety in its landscape and that’s all that it is. It’s dry. It’s uncompromised. It’s real. If you want to be convinced of Sierra’s story; buy this wine, drink this wine, it’s beautiful.
