Clarendon Hills Romas Grenache 2020

98 / 100

Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate

The 2020 Romas Grenache is resplendent with fresh oregano, red apple skins and Sichuan peppercorn. This has intensity and line and concentration and is mouthfilling and supple. It's a kaleidoscopic, powerful, restrained wine. It has coiled power and presence, crushed rocks, Chinese five spice and brine. The tannins are omnipresent, silty, flooding the palate. Seductive. It's impossible to overstate the pleasure here. A wine of structure and density with lightness and life, too. We’re discussing the lifetime of these wines, and the 15-year mark is where Alex and Roman agree that the time for primary fruit recedes and it morphs into its older self. So, given that I enjoy primary fruit in all wine, this is where I set the window —of course, they will live beyond this. Magic.

Taste the terroir of Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale in this old vine, unfiltered, hand made flagship example. Clarendon Hills Romas Grenache is a single vineyard wine made from a patch of fruit on the steepest and rockiest section of the Blewitt Springs Grenache vineyard. Gnarly old vines planted in the 1940’s produce microscopic yields along with amazing acidity and present an acidity profile similar to that of a white wine. The density of the rocks and soil up in this part of the vineyard defines Romas and warrants its isolation from other parts of the vineyard and position as flagship Grenache expression at Clarendon Hills. The heavy presence of ironstone, quartz and shale rocks limit the size and yields of these vines and the resulting wine reflects the mineral elements. The expression we receive from this highly concentrated part of the vineyard is utterly hedonistic and offers mineral complexity for the wine collectors and enthusiasts out there. Typically each vintage yields a vivid kaleidoscope of fresh cut roses, Turkish delight, musk, sherbert, blood orange, blueberry, raspberry and kirsch fruit across an effortless powerful palate aloft with silk and ultra fine talcum like extract. Nuances of crushed rock, flint, graphite, iodine and ferrous like rust take this expression to the next level. Despite the majesty of the tasting note the profile is medium weighted and mirrors an iron fist in the velvet glove analogy. Amazing both right now to drink and also for the next 20 years in the cellar.