2020 WeatherEye "Estate" Red Mountain Grenache

Fresh, rocky and firm, the 2020 Grenache offers a cherry core, with a pleasing dusty mineral essence, hints of wild herbs, sage and picturesque crunchy red fruit that shines with purity and finesse. Full-bodied, the generously-layered Grenache unwinds on the palate to reveal seductive crunchy red fruit tones, delicate mineral tension, a firm, tannic edge and a slightly spicy note on the finish. It's a hedonistic wine that proves Washington State can do almost anything. The wine spent 18 months in neutral oak. Watch out for this release later this year. Bravo! 2,100 bottles produced. (AM)

WeatherEye Vineyard is one of the most incredible plantings in the USA. A site so radical it's implementation has been 15 years in the making! Every block is intimately fine tuned to the specific altitude, slope, exposure, soil composition an unique qualities of the land. Instead of clearing the land before planting vines, existing native plants have also been incorporated into the vineyard in an effort to capture a true sense of place in the wines that includes the sous bois or garrigue type elements one might find in the wines of the Rhone Valley. The incredibly rocky volcanic soils, constant wind and elongated growing season the elevation brings gives the wines immense concentration and structure. Even though the vines are relatively young, the intensity of the wines here is already formidable. WeatherEye's Grenache is super impressive, and I say that as a huge fan but tough judge of Grenache! Grenache can easily produce rich, ripe, powerful, fruit driven wines. However, finding one that can harness that powerful fruit expression whilst retaining aromatic freshness and balanced acidity can be more challenging. Add in Grenache's notorious lack of color and structure...making truly inspirational Grenache is no mean feat. Well, the team at WeatherEye absolutely nailed it here! The Grenache block that produced this wine is just a third of an acre! However, the vines are packed in at a super high density and trained using a goblet pruning method. Soil in this micro block is very sandy with chunks of basalt throughout and very little organic matter. You can taste the struggle of the vines in the wine. Grenache is vigorous, and will throw a lot of crop on richer soils. The almost barren soils here and high-density planting seem to have concentrated the vine's efforts into producing unbelievably flavorful fruit. Once again, even though WeatherEye is a relatively new estate, this is already a benchmark for the varietal in the USA.