Our Wines - 2009 Devote Old Vine Grenache
Devote
The Wine
Medium cherry red in colour with fragrant aromas of red plum and cherry fruit with a splash of raspberry providing some higher-toned lift. There are hints of Asian spice, red licorice, gingerbread, Hoi Sin sauce, mahogany, dried flowers, redcurrant jelly, vanilla bean and spicy oak making for a heady, enticing smelling wine.
In the mouth the wine shows great drive and flow across the palate with vibrant ripe red and dark berry fruits. Red cherry, plum and redcurrant fruit flavours come to the fore with a dash of raspberry coulis. There are hints of five spice, earth, polished leather, ginger-cake, red licorice and “Old Jamaican” chocolate all wrapped up by a bright, vivid line of acidity and chocolaty, ripe, fine-grained tannins. Beautifully balanced and crying out for lighter red meat and Asian-style dishes.
Drink now or cellar for 5-8 years.
The Winemaking
Fermented on skins in an open fermenter for 13 days and then gently basket pressed, this small parcel of wine was then transferred to 100% old French Hogs heads for 20 months of maturing.
Once matured the wine was bottled unfiltered and spent 6 months in bottle in our warehouse prior to release.
Bottled – 23rd November 2010
Alc – 14.9
pH – 3.42
The Vineyard
The grapes were dry grown on the out skirts of Greenock, home of some of the most extraordinary grapes. Vines were planted in the early1960’s in loamy topsoil over soft red clay.
Cropped at 2 tonnes per acre, the vineyard was hand picked on April 15th when optimum flavours and balance were achieved in the grape.
- 3 stars - 2011 Winestate May/June
New releases - 94 points - James Halliday - 2012 Australian Wine Companion
Excellent colour for barossa valley grenache, full purple; open fermentation, basket pressing and 20 months in new and old french oak has pushed all the right buttons for this dark fruited (no confection) and well balanced palate. A wine that definatley started in the vineyard of near fifty year old vines. - 93 points - Rod Brown - Red to Brown
- 2011 The Adelaide Review Hot 100 SA Wines
- Bronze - 2011 Barossa Wine Show
- Bronze - 2011 Small Wine Makers Show
- 92 - Nick Stock - 2012 Good Wine Guide
- Julian Cldrey - Full Pour
26 May 2011
This is the third vintage of this wine I've tasted, and I do believe it's getting better with each iteration. Looking back over my notes, the 2008 was a significant advance over the 2007. The current vintage is again a really good expression of Barossa Grenache, notable for the way it balances typically sweet fruit with a range of sappy, savoury notes.
The nose is clean and highly expressive, showing sharp snapped succulent and fresh red fruit, coffee, brown spice and charry oak. The fruit and oak influences are very well balanced, fruit presenting first then relaxing into complex, subtle, pleasingly rustic barrel-derived notes. It's both warm and fresh at the same time, sort of like wearing the warmest, wooliest jumper you own on a crisp, early Spring day.
The palate is true to the nose in both flavour profile and balance, starting early and sustaining fruit presence along most of its line. There's a core of clean, medicinal fruit around which a range of other flavours gather, some fruit and some from oak. Reasonable intensity (Yelland & Papps wines never seem to want to be powerhouses, even the upper labels), medium weight, nice drive. A bit of heat, but I expect that from this style of wine. The only disappointment here is a simplistic texture that is just a bit too pumped up and slippery for its own good. I'd like to see more tannin texture and dimensionality. It's a small niggle, though.
Very nice, strongly regional Grenache.
Yelland & Papps
Price: $A32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample
Posted by Julian on Thursday, May 26, 2011 at 2:57 AM
Filed in Australia, Red and tagged 2009, Barossa Valley, Grenache, South Australia - 3 stars - Panel - Winestate Magazine
- 3 stars - Panel - Winestate March/April 2012
A rich, warm full -bodied wine with powerful, berry / chocolate / licorice elements.