Wine & Spirits - February 2021 - 52

Year's Best South Australia Mediterranean Varieties
in 2018, floral and sunny wild strawberry
flavors and sweet lavender perfume. Tannins
hold it tight, so the wine feels refined and
juicy at once. This should develop well in the
cellar. § Old Bridge Cellars, Napa, CA
126012

91 | Ess & See

$28

91 | Thistledown

$45

2018 McLaren Vale No. 5 Grenache ^ Ripe-
ness takes this grenache toward sweet flavors
of baked strawberries and red plums. It's full
and round, with a lovely ease to its generous
baked-clay tannins. Pour it with salmon
roasted in a salt crust. § Biagio Cru and Estate
Wines, New Hyde Park, NY
126010
2019 McLaren Vale She's Electric Old Vine
Single Vineyard Grenache ^ From a vineyard
in Seaview, this dry-farmed, old-bush-vine
grenache shows the region's warmth in its
baked-strawberry flavors and lasting ground
black-pepper spice. It's bright in the middle,
gentle in the end with a red fruit glow. Pour
it with spicy grilled pork. § Southern Starz,
Huntington Beach, CA
126015

90 | Nick Haselgrove

$39

2019 McLaren Vale Rookie Grenache ^
A thoroughly natural McLaren grenache,
this brings sour-apple acidity and toasted
hazelnut savor to its warm, gamey flavors. It
reminded one taster of grouse, and it would
work well with any dark-meat game bird.
(Winemaker Uffe Deichmann grew up in
Denmark on a street called " Poplar Way, " a
clue to how you might try to say the wine's
name.) § Vine Street Imports, Mount Laurel, NJ

MENCIA
126068

90 | d'Arenberg

$29

2019 McLaren Vale The Anthropocene
Epoch Mencía ^ Chester Osborn grafted
some merlot over to mencía eight years ago,
and has since grafted more. It ripens five
weeks later than shiraz, Osborn says, making
similarly aromatic wines without going
jammy. His 2019 is texturally complete, a
rustic wine with ripe cherry flavors and bitter,
gamey tannins that have a fruity-mushroom
scent. Dark and woodsy, it will take on roast
goat. § Old Bridge Cellars, Napa, CA
52

WINE & SPIRITS

126017

93 | Thorn-Clarke

$32

2018 Barossa Valley Hoffman DV Eben-
ezer Road Single Vineyard Mataro ^ Peter
Kelly makes this wine from a parcel in
northern Barossa along Ebenezer Road,
where the vines grown in sandy loam soils.
This is a vibrant red with concentrated fresh
boysenberry fruit and equally fresh tannins,
mataro in all its primitive glory. The tannins
bring dark notes of salty black beans and
cumin spice, while the fruit cuts through with
a prickle of acidity. It's a spicy, untamed red
with a long horizon line of flavor. § Kysela Père
et Fils, Winchester, VA

FEBRUARY 2021

toward dried-cherry character that gives it
an Italianate feel. Both full and lithe, this is
destined for a wood-oven pizza. Vine Street
Imports, Mount Laurel, NJ

SHIRAZ

126122

N E R O D'AVOL A

$25

2016 McLaren Vale Blackbilly Old
Vine Grenache ^ Lean in its structure and
concentrated in its meaty tannins, this wine
shows the warmth of McLaren Vale in its
baked fruit flavors. Give this some time in a
decanter while you grill fennel sausages for
dinner. § EcoValley, Salisbury, NC
126002

90 | Poppelvej

MOURVEDRE

92 | Unico Zelo

$20

90 | Ricca Terra

$25

2020 Riverland Fresh A.F. Nero d'Avola
(Best Buy) ^ Laura and Brendan Carter
produce a range of nero d'Avola wines,
working with fruit from Clare Valley, from
the Adelaide Hills and from Barmera in
Riverland. We only tasted the Fresh AF,
the lightest of their neros, blended with
old-vine zibibbo that grows along with it
in Riverland-that kick of zibibbo makes
it, as one taster said, " a white-wine lover's
red wine. " Well, it's a wine for this red-wine
lover, too, as I couldn't resist the tart plum
and cracked black pepper scents that poured
out of this glass, surprisingly bold given the
wine's light lavender color. Given its redfruit length, this may be one of the best
Riverland wines I've tasted. Built to drink
now, especially if you're serving Sicilian
snacks, like fried-potato crocchè, pannele
(chickpea fritters) or pizza secca.  § Epicurean
Wines, Seattle, WA
2018 Riverland Nero d'Avola Ashley
Ratcliff started growing Mediterranean
varieties in the Riverland in 2008, selling
the fruit to small wineries-like Unico Zelo,
for their nero-zibibbo blend. This is his own
take on nero d'Avola, seemingly simple at
first, with an earthy, licorice-like sweetness
and cherry-liqueur flavors. But there's a
subtle change to the wine in the glass, a shift

95 | Penfolds

$800

94 | Penfolds

$150

2016 South Australia Grange Bin 95 ^
Under Peter Gago's direction, Grange has
become a thoroughly contemporary wine,
building on more than 60 years of history,
standing apart from the wars over the soul
of shiraz while playing a leadership role in
negotiations for a truce. This 2016 presents
all of shiraz's power and energy as textural
bliss, bypassing simple fruit, high alcohol
or tannic interruptions. The damson plum,
huckleberry and dark currant flavors are
layered into the wine's complexity, but the
impression isn't about fruit. The sweet oak
spice, the savory chocolate ganache and the
meaty, musky scents in the tannins show no
heat of the alcohol that extracted them. If
you do perceive the alcohol, it reads as the
varied wavelengths of light from distant
planets, a cool energy that drives the wine
and will sustain it, like other great vintages
of Grange, for fifty years or more. § Treasury
Wine Estates, Napa, CA

2017 South Australia St. Henri Shiraz ^ By
aging some of his top shiraz in large, old
wooden vats, Peter Gago follows a tradition
established by John Davoren in the 1950s,
creating one of the most elegant and longlived red wines of Australia. The cool, late
2017 vintage played into the St. Henri
https://www.penfolds.com/wines/the-penfolds-collection/grange/2016 https://www.unicozelo.com.au/products/fresh-a-f https://www.penfolds.com/en-us/wines/the-penfolds-collection/st-henri-shiraz/2017
Wine & Spirits - February 2021

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