Last year, my topic was the good, the bad and the ugly. This year, just the good. The year has been pretty sweet. Grenache, sadly, is a very maligned wine grape in California and the United States. It produces big yields.
Grenache wines are typically light in color, and the wine can make very lovely roses.
In fact, my favorite California rose is the Grenache Rose made by Craig Williams at Joseph Phelps Vineyards in the Napa Valley. Try a '91 or '94 vintage if you find a bottle lurking on a store shelf some place. Tom remarked the Alban clearly exceeded its model. At a recent blind tasting of grenaches we held at the Buellton Hitching Post, the Alban 1996 Grenache came in first place by a resounding distance. This bottle is fantastic, all together, big, rich, ripe, complex, powerful.