Chateau Tanunda The Everest Old Vine Barossa Grenache 2018
- 95
- $330
- Drink by: 2021-2036
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The drinker is left in no doubt that the producer is aiming high with The Everest name. The bottle is heavy, deep punted and expensive. The price tag is an eye-watering $330 a bottle and, weighing inattentive 15% alcohol, it is certainly in the upper reaches for the Grenache grape. That said, the Rhone grape carries it well.
There are structures in place – tannin and oak – holding firm and keeping the wine’s big, complex personality in check. Aromas are heady. Earth-clay, blackberry, liquorice, lifted spices of clove, rosemary and, throughout, the lilting thread of aromatic lavender. A lovely clarity of fruit on the palate together with grenache confection notes. It is matched by complimentary savouriness of earth, prune, leather. All is securely in place for a long life.
Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
