I struggled with this wine a little earlier in the year with simillar feels again. This is such a distinctive wine – you can’t escape the skins and the bunchy spice. Shy, red fruit, but shut down by its tannins. Its interesting, and certainly quality, but I find it a bit of a grumpy, acidic, tight wine. 92+ Points: 92/100
Adjacent to the herald High Sands block, the Ovitelli comes from vines planted in 1946. Fermentation occurs in Clayver ceramic eggs and on skins for 7 months, no pressings were used. Matured in ceramic for 11 months total. Dehydrated raspberries, Sweetheart cherries and wild strawberries. Crushed sandstone, saffron threads and Sichuan peppercorns. Acidity leads the charge followed by those unique Ovitelli tannins that sap and dry the palate, before floods of red berry flavours rush in again. This can only be one wine and a decidedly approachable vintage at that, some quince bitters give lift and texture to the finish of the wine. Always memorable, always a wild ride and one of a kind. Pair with Tasmania tiger prawns and red pepper sauce. Points: 96/100
So often my favourite of the single block Grenache, though this 2023 is just a fraction more elegant and doesn’t punch like the other wine. Matured for seven months on skins in a ceramic egg (11 months total in those 675L eggs). Light ruby coloured, it smells of raspberry and red frogs, with a Pinot-esque brightness before those trademark skin tannins give a nutty, full-mouth sandpaper tannic grip. The fruit feels a little light as if the volume has been toned down a bit, without the conviction of the High Sands or the open lushness and contrasts of the Hickinbotham. It’s a very pretty and graceful wine, though – a lucid McLaren Vale Grenache, and as it gains weight, it’s only going to get better. Points: 92/100
100% Grenache taken from Block 30 – 2 hectares planted in 1946 and adjacent to the Highs Sands block. Another McLaren Vale Grenache that elicits excitement for the grape and place. This is impressive in its balance of brightness and perfume while still wonderfully cerebral and complex. Lifted aromas of sweet raspberry compote, macerated strawberry and red liquorice lead before a cut of white pepper spice acts as a savoury foil. Very pretty and seductively perfumed. There’s a warm sand note beneath which is a common note of high quality modern day McLaren Vale Grenache (almost too obvious a note given the sandy soils) some dried garrigue adding further savouriness, dried cranberry, black tea. There’s a distinct river stone minerality shooting through its centre, too. This is very pretty, though not at the expense of immense depth and intrigue. The palate is racy, mineral, cool and lifted with pretty pops of raspberry, red apple flesh, cranberry, and red rose crunched within a vein of powder-coated tannins and fresh acidity with the sand and dried herb notes lingering beneath. The finish is long and crunchy with red apple skin tension and red liquorice appeal. An ethereal Ovitelli Grenache from the cool 2023 vintage. Points: 96/100
Bright medium-light purple-red colour; dusty straw, terracotta and red jube aromas, a touch of dried nettle. The wine is medium bodied and fruit-sweet at the heart, with a plushness and shrouding of fluffy tannins. Long, smooth flow of flavour and fine grained tannins in harmony. Very smart grenache. Points: 94/100
Two immediate things. The colour, and the alcohol. This is a pale grenache, and at 13.5% it’s relatively low alcohol – every previous release of Yangarra Ovitelli Grenache has been listed at 14.5% alcohol save for the 2017, which was also listed at 13.5%, and the 2019, which was 14%. We’re clearly in lighter, lacier territory here, and with it comes fragrance, finely stitched tannin, exotic herb notes and exquisitely pure, red berried, floral-infused fruit. This is a red wine from South Australia with a delicate air to it. It’s wine as a delicacy. It has lilt, lift, life and length. It’s a wine for large-bowled glassware. It’s a wine that you both want to sit back and admire, and guzzle. In short, it’s a wine of the best kind. Points: 95/100
From original '46 vines next to the High Sands block. The '23 grenache wines are very pale in the glass, and they are all a degree lighter in alcohol due to the cool year (one I love). A vintage like this really illustrates the kinship with the avant-garde grenache of Gredos, and with Barbaresco, and refined Etno Rosso (Girolamo Russo in particular), rather than almost anything from the Rhône. Savoury, dried red fruits, cranberry, cherry and redcurrant, warm terracotta, bergamot, potpourri, sumac, ground cinnamon, star anise, so tightly coiled, but also tensile, finely expansive in its flavour delivery. There’s tension aplenty, and it promises to unfurl over a long life. Superb. Points: 97/100
The 2023 Grenache Ovitelli is stunning. This has wonderful purity of energetic red cherry, dried herb and subtle meaty tones. Savory complexity builds on a textural palate while holding impressive composure through to a finish of serious length accented by a twist of tannins. Points: 95/100
