Vanguardist V Grenache 2024

The Vanguardist calling card, the defining wine. Deeply savoury and intense, layered, detailed, chiselled, seriously complex. The vintage conditions were a little easier in '24 than '23, with a little more warmth, but this continues the Vanguardist upward trajectory with a theme of transparency, elegance and refined detail. Dehydrated cranberry and goji, barberry, amaro herbs and spicing, dried citrus peel, rye, caraway, pumpernickel, sun-warmed terracotta, pressed wildflowers. A sour-fruited tension to flavour and structure runs through it. It’s a wine that is so captivating on the nose, so intense and layered, that it is almost enough as is. But the palate, the chewy, pithy, silty, sandy tannins, the tamarind acidity, the haunting persistence … Another beautifully beguiling world-class grenache from Mr Corbett. Bravo. (97+) MARCUS ELLIS, Halliday Wine Companion

I just had winemaker Michael Corbett in the house to run through his new releases (available April 1). He’s a very passionate man, and his attention to detail in the vineyard and winemaking process is almost obsessive. I suggested he might like to taste this wine from a Conterno Sensory glass and he thought that was a very good idea (to paraphrase). This is matured in two 22HL Slavonian foudre, which are now seven years old. Two thirds whole bunch. From the Rende Vineyard in Blewitt Springs, which is now over 55 years old. This is a lighter, more frisky expression of Vanguardist Grenache, in the way of 2023, though with a bit more oomph, but less richness, tannin and stuffing than, say, 2019 and 2021. Not a comment on quality, more a guide to style.

Raspberry, cherry, almond, spice, slight liquorice richness, dried roses. Medium-bodied, spicy, cherry and raspberry, savoury and gently earthy, a fine grainy richness to tannin, a cranberry freshness to acidity, with a nutty strawberry and spice finish of excellent length. Wonderful finesse and perfume here. Give it a couple more years to come up. (96) GARY WALSH, The Wine Front