As I try to continue to catch up on notes from the past couple of months, it will take some creative thinking to combine multiple wines into one post. For this one, I'll report on two Grenache-based wines from very different areas. Up first was a wine from the Spanish region of Priorat, the 2001 Scala Dei Iugiter. Earlier in the year, I had another wine from Scala Dei that I enjoyed, but this one was a bit disappointing. The Iugiter seemed much more modern in style and still had a lot of oak on it. For a wine of this age, it is concerning that the oak has not integrated better by this point.
The next wine was the 2003 Tir Na Nog Old Vine Grenache from Australia's McLaren Vale. This wine seemed disjointed on the first night, and I thought was probably just fading and past its peak. However, on the second night it was actually better, more balanced with some fruit still showing. It still wasn't great through, and for a wine that Parker rated 94 points, was a bit of a disappointment.
Overall, these two wines didn't do much to acquit Grenache's potential outside the Rhone Valley, though I do know that in Priorat, there are some very good Grenache-based wines, and even the prior Scala Dei was evidence of that.
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