Santa Barbara Winemakers.

McPrice Myers 2004, grenache, Santa Barbara County, 15% alc.

It seems recently we have done a lot of Mac in video form, but not in taste form. This is my first actual taste of what Mac is doing in fact. Had to take a hiatus from grenache to see if I missed drinking it. Yes, I do miss it more than I thought.

You read it here first. Grenache is our next red to look for, pinot and syrah lovers will never be let down in the county, that is a given. As for grenache forget the oscars, expect a nobel. This will become the Santa Barbara backbone, all I have tasted is only a precursor of what is to come. I have seen the way the vines respond, the soil it thrives in, the love and affection it is accorded and have yet to be disappointed. Grenache is that wine to fill the space between syrah and pinot, spine tingling, head spinning, glass raising, toast prompting, pleasure giving. Grenache is the diaspora of grapes, looking for the right home. Pinot is Burgundy, syrah is Rhône, shiraz is elsewhere including Australia but grenache as a stand alone is a misfit. Time to get the trademark out and claim it for SB. Wonderfully versatile and the body guard of mourvedre, cinsault and counoise (by the way had an excellent barrel tasting over at Bridlewood of the '05 counoise that is going into the next Arabesque program, this deserves more limelight. David Hopkins is a winemakers' winemaker, his wines are impeccable, the patience he has is simply fascinating, but to use this wine in any other way would be a great loss.), grenache is across the board a wine to take more seriously.

So what to do with a wine you have never tasted but with a menu that may not work and with ingredients you will email to friends and announce WTF! is this guy thinking? I went for veal liver, fries and deep fried plantains. I went WTF too, it got more daring but you don't know until you try. This is a very simple recipe. Cut potatoes into thick logs of chip shapes, fry them in grapeseed oil, throw in one inch thick plantain slices (ensure plantain skin is black and the fruit is soft. The veal is soaked in salt water for about 30 minutes then fried in ghie (clarified butter), adding garlic close to the end to prevent over cooking/browning of the garlic. The ingredients are served and then splash some malt vinegar over the fries/chips. I'm a typical Brit, I don't object to mayo or ketchup on fries but there is a time and place. The time and place here was the focus on sweetish and sourish. The sweet of the plantain, the sour of malt vinegar, with the density only liver has. The grenache was left to its own devices. The idea was for the wine to work at complimenting the food, the challenge like throwing down the gauntlet, a duel, foes of unknown levels. Instead of a duel, I got a waltz. You get the French oak aroma on the nose but not on the palate, you get strawberry on the nose but raspberry on the palate, you get warm smooth depth on the nose but complex fall berries and clean tannin on the palate. You see syrah in the glass but lack jamminess on the palate. You think you have tried grenache but get surprises each time.

Grenache has dimension, has facets, has complexity, has depth as well as breadth, has profundity where predictability is found elsewhere. With this wine though, I'd even go "international." I get many forms of ethnic diversity winding its way into the finish where the initial approach was pomegranite. From Scandinavia to Asia Minor, berries on the edge of forests, humid late summers, blueberry sized strawberries high on the Taurus Mountains, snowmelt irrigating the eel in nearby streams. Dirt, this grape thrives in dirt, sharing with the fragrant chestnut and trees outlining the difference between field and sky. Tousled hair kids chasing butterflies with nets while the berries are collected by the young bucks, showing off their prowess to their chosen sweetheart. Bacchus serving the juice to Cupid.

This wine has a balanced, level-headedness. At 15% alcohol you get to the point of thinking how big are we expected to go with California wines, but even this is explanatory for those concerned about liver (not veal liver) failure. Grenache is a great wine here in SB in many cases when it reaches as much as 27/29 brix. This wine does not run hot whatsoever. In fact, I'm two thirds through the bottle and my head is clear, a pleasant floral fragrance is now becoming apparent on the nose and a rich tarriness, or burned treacle is coating the finish, this is a "McPricey" wine but worth every penny. If this wasn't a treat I'd be buying this by the case and having it most evenings very easily.

If you want me to force you to read the other reviews, I'd say this is what Ethan would do if he had access to Beckmen's Purisima Mountain, this is what Dave Corey would do if he had Jeff Wilkes' or Norm Yost's barrels. This is the caramelisation of onions on a flatbread pizza, the one with figs clinging to the roof of the mouth. If this be the eighteenth century, tis what the missionaries found acceptable, a clean tart cranberry, a shiny red skin. To even expect balance with this kind of alcohol an expectation should be set at around 32 brix in a good year to achieve a syrah sensation. I'd stay with the dry, sending diabetics elsewhere, keeping the option open.

This is a Rhone style malbec, the kind of wine that makes you think of an alternative tawny port, but far too dry for most cheese. A ponder of a wine. A good 2 hours before it becomes a solid dry red. A tablespoon of ghie should have dissipated at this point and a caffeine restlessness kicks in, concentration becomes impaired by concentrating on the profiles each dimension offers.

If you don't believe any of the above, get a bottle and see what happens. I don't see this stuff lasting long epecially after seeing what the '05's are looking like across the Santa Ynez Rhônes.

April 20, 2006