LOVE the topic and love the discussion. Jon Bonne’s article is a good wine, and certainly shows the diversity of soils and climates that grenache can excel at,
Domestic grenache, and CA grenache in particular, has somewhat of an ‘identity crisis’ IMHO. The vast majority of it is cropped and picked to make higher volumes wines that show very little resemblance to the variety itself. (As proof, in 2013, nearly 60K of the 66K tons of grenache crushed in CA came from the Central Valley).
Therefore, you tend not to see many CA grenaches labeled as such. On top of that, due to labeling laws, most winemakers blend in a good dose of ‘other things’ in order to darken the wine and/or add more ‘structure’ to the wines.
Man, if someone tried to do that with Pinot domestically they’d be lynched (!!!) but it’s kinda become what’s ‘expected’ of domestic grenaches.
I understand the concept of ‘too much fruit’ or ‘too candied’ - grenaches that come from warmer climate sites bring forth this crazy candied strawberry element to me, that can be wonderful in small doses, but too much if made front and center.
But there are plenty of pockets of places where grenache is grown where it 1) does not crop at 10 tons to the acre; 2) is cool enough to develop other characteristics in the grape and the subsequent wine and 3) with newer clonal materials providing winemakers with smaller clusters and smaller berries, changing the juice to skin ratios.
Even with all of this, many winemakers choose to stick grenache into new oak barrels - something that, to me, really covers up the delicateness that the grape brings forward.
I’ll be part of a grenache seminar at Rhone Ranges this Sunday in Richmond where we’ll be pouring 8 different varietally labeled grenaches from as far south as me (my 09 Larner Vineyard Grenache) and as far north as Oregon (unfortunately, there are very few WA wineries that are members of Rhone Rangers). Can’t wait!
In addition to some that have already been mentioned that I dig - Tribute to Grace, Villa Creek, Girard - search out Beckmen, Jaffurs, Kaena, and Stolpman . . .
Cheers!