Yangarra High Sands Grenache 2021

The lucky drinker of this gorgeous Grenache, made from biodynamically farmed 80-year-old vines, is met with a perfume of blueberry crumble, cherry, violets, and a heady combo of dried herbs and spice (think: sage, bay and cloves) straight from first sniff. A lift of juicy acidity is especially vibrant for this notoriously low-in-acid variety. It plays beautifully with distinctive, cat’s tongue tannins and freshly pressed blueberry juice. Pinot-esque in its balance of power, elegance and juicy-fruited prettiness, the cool 2021 vintage has brought both approachability and an ethereal quality to one of the world’s great Grenache. Yangarra Estate Vineyard. Points: 99/100

Wine Enthusiast ∙ 2nd Jun 2025

Deep, bright, youthful purple-red colour with a sweet blackberry pastille, mixed spice and almost jammy raspberry coulis flavours. The wine is very full bodied and concentrated, dense and massive, with amazing depth of flavour and serious tannins adding great authority to the structure, which will ensure it ages superbly. This is a most impressive grenache. Long term.  Points: 98/100

The Real Review ∙ 4th Aug 2024

At the apex of Grenache in Australia, not only in terms of its distinguished price point, but vineyard, farming and winemaking application. It's all tart cherry, rose hip tea, ginger biscuits, clove and cinnamon with sweet earthiness and a flicker of alpine herbs. It's brooding, potent and ripples with chewy-dusty tannin alongside. It feels very serious; a wine of impact and hedonism. Superbly done. Points: 95/100

Wine Business Magazine ∙ 21st Jun 2024

One of the great grenache. Comes from a high-altitude vineyard planted in 1946 into deep sandy soils. There were 50% whole berries, used with the wild yeast ferment in open fermenters with a longer maceration period. Matured in a mix of Austrian and French oak foudres, puncheons and ceramic eggs. Captures the sweet succulence of the vintage with high end perfumes a feature. Medium bodied but extraordinarily rich and complex with layers of flavours building a powerful and very long palate profile. Great wine. Points: 99/100

Wine Pilot ∙ 30th May 2024

High Sands is always a landmark wine, a site-reflective icon of peerless husbandry and elaboration, but it can be imposing, needing time and reflection. This is different, though, finely tuned, lucid, silky and sophisticated, and feeling even more expressive of place. A great, cool vintage, yes, with both depth and levity, but Pete Fraser’s quarter turns of the screw are also palpable. Fruits are red and black, ripe but with some tart wild tension, dusted in heady Baharat spicing, the heartbeat of old-vine power pulsing insistently within. Flavour descriptors feel ineffectual, though. It’s the sheer graceful power of the thing that’s so beguiling, as it noiselessly swoops in, catching you in the updraft of its immense wingspan. By any measure, this is a great wine. Points: 98/100

Halliday Wine Companion ∙ 5th May 2024

High Sands is always a landmark wine, a site-reflective icon of peerless husbandry and elaboration, but it can be imposing, needing time and reflection. This is different, though, finely tuned, lucid, silky and sophisticated, and feeling even more expressive of place. A great, cool vintage, yes, with both depth and levity, but Pete Fraser’s quarter turns of the screw are also palpable. Fruits are red and black, ripe but with some tart wild tension, dusted in heady baharat spicing, the heartbeat of old-vine power pulsing insistently within. Flavour descriptors feel ineffectual, though. It’s the sheer graceful power of the thing that’s so beguiling, as it noiselessly swoops in, catching you in the updraft of its immense wingspan. By any measure, this is a great wine. Points: 98/100

James Halliday Wine Companion 2025, 7 August, 2024 ∙ 30th Apr 2024

Cherry, raspberry, biscuit spice and mint/menthol, saline too, with a rosy perfume. It is a bold wine, and the spicy oak certainly shows some impact (especially after tasting the Ovitelli), there is a lot of grip and flesh to tannin, and there is something of a sizzled sage leaf flavour in the wine too. Maybe it is a little bit warm in alcohol, and the tannin feels a little furry, though there is no shortage of flavour and impact, and its length and power augers well for time in the cellar. Points: 94/100

The Wine Front ∙ 30th Apr 2024

Often the best grenache at this stellar site and certainly the most robust, without any sense of excess of heaviness. Sandalwood, campfire and almost pithy red cherry and amaro liqueur notes. Some tamarind and sarsaparilla. It’s not dissimilar to top Nebbiolo, both flavour-wise and structurally. The finish is juicy but tightly wound, auguring for a long future in the cellar. Drinkable now, but best from 2029. Points: 96/100

JamesSuckling.com ∙ 19th Feb 2024

Medium ruby-red with a bright purple tone. Raspberry, Turkish Delight and Chinese five spice aromatics. Palate is seamless and silken: red fruits, exotic spices, dry earth and rose petals all flow across the palate, all entwined with a fine net of acidity and tannin that lifts and drives it. The never-ending finish is a chorus of fruit and spice with the finest grained but persistent tannins ensuring you keep returning to admire it. Points: 98/100

The Real Review ∙ 23rd Jan 2024