Vanguardist V Grenache 2024

The Vanguardist calling card, the defining wine. Deeply savoury and intense, layered, detailed, chiselled, seriously complex. The vintage conditions were a little easier in '24 than '23, with a little more warmth, but this continues the Vanguardist upward trajectory with a theme of transparency, elegance and refined detail. Dehydrated cranberry and goji, barberry, amaro herbs and spicing, dried citrus peel, rye, caraway, pumpernickel, sun-warmed terracotta, pressed wildflowers. A sour-fruited tension to flavour and structure runs through it. It’s a wine that is so captivating on the nose, so intense and layered, that it is almost enough as is. But the palate, the chewy, pithy, silty, sandy tannins, the tamarind acidity, the haunting persistence … Another beautifully beguiling world-class grenache from Mr Corbett. Bravo. Drink 2025-2039. 97+ points Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion

The 2024 Grenache is perfumed and aromatic, leading with saturated rose petals, pomegranate, raspberry and licorice, alongside cracked timut peppercorns (in the way that timut pepper leads with pink grapefruit, it is fresh, with black tea, sage, resin and is delicate, singular). The tannins are silky and fine; they build over the course of drinking, through the middle palate, the crescendo and the finish. This is more powerful than I expected, despite what I know of the (in the end, magnificent) 2024 vintage, though the tannins are not as prominent as I expected—no bad thing. This is all about the tannins, as all great Grenache is, and it is the last impression on the palate once the wine is gone. The fruit was handpicked over three different days (10 days apart), with reduced yields from the 2023 vintage. It was made with around two-thirds whole bunches, with a long and slow fermentation over five weeks and matured for 17 months in two 2,200-liter Slavonian oak foudres (seven years old). This is a satiating, layered rendition of Vanguardist Grenache, and the highlight is the tannins. Drink 2026-2039. 97 points Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate