After almost an entire year packed with palatal confrontational therapy – meaning confronting myself with plenty of wines made from grape varieties I am not particularly fond of – today aka tonight is the perfect time to give myself another (confrontational) one. And which grape could be more suitable than my good old palatal arch enemy: Grenache (don't take it all too serious please, but I haven't had all too many enjoyable wines produced from Grenache, even less I was able to "manage" or "handle") … aaanyway, let's hop off all the way to extendet metro Madrid to Cebreros and see what kind of Grenache aka Garnacha I will challenge my tongue this time.
Popped and poured, perhaps a bit too cold ...
Colour: garnet, quite vital, a lot of transparency, a few sediments, no detectable discolouration
Nose: blood - a lot, red currant - slightly jamy, mild eatheral touch, marzipan, almonds
Palate: more bramble than red currant - very pristine and precise and a bit liquerish, some high voltage chocolate, rather present alcohol, luckily only some hints of unfavourable candy store memories, quite strong acid for Grenache as well; so far nothing which might turn me off completely ... let's wait a bit
Next update with a hefty delay of 23 hours or so … reason*
Colour: well, obviously the same
Nose: a bit more settled and sophisticated, still very fruit dominated, perhaps some additional orange peel and unfortunately with some minor traces of incense and nail polish
Palate: besides the bramble-red currant jelly infusion plus some choco a much stronger touch of orange peels, definitely some iodine, herbaceous liquorice, leather and nutmeg. Overall a very tense Grenache with a lot of vivid alcohol mentality. Luckily not much resemblances of cooled down mulled wine - a rather common grenache'ish problem for me. This somehow gratifying attribute paired with is prevailing preciseness and very vivid substance may show some considerable qualities – *unfortunately I cannot “handle” this kind of wine all to good
Perhaps another update tomorrow ...
Another 22 hours later!
Nose and palate: much more earthy, dark and almost outmost serious. The very lively fruity characteristics are subsiding substantially – luckily – the vigour is still really vital and convincing. I dare to write: I am starting to enjoy this fellow. There might be some evolving traces of carignan'ish rusticity now. No problem for me though. The firm touch of alcohol however is still far too for my tongue.
I think another sip in about 21 hours time will do no harm ...
... okay, okay, it took a bit
longer than expected.
I suppose the beast in this Grenache is about to be unleashed! The sweaty and rustique'ish characteristics are evolving quite substantially. Aromatics are still relatively staple, however more brute and volatile. The overall quality and especially the repeatedly mentioned vigor is degrading rapidly today. Anyway, quite a convincing and certainly decent**** wine … but in the end not really me ... as I've mentioned before!
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