I love Grezeaux from most vintages and own many bottles in my cellar.
To be honest, this is one of the only ones I haven’t loved. Not that the quality is poor or that the wine is flawed, but I normally am thrilled by the pure fresh, cool, purple berry fruit at the front end of these wines. At least this bottle at this age, this is kind of blackish, iron, black olive and salty in more of a Northern Rhone way. There is also less tobacco leaf and gravel character than I normally see.
I guess part of my reaction is being not that much of a Rhone and syrah fan in general, but also just that Rhone syrah isn’t really what I’m looking for when I open a Chinon.
This could totally just be a one-off reaction. Take it for what little it’s worth. And it’s a good quality wine with character, just not the character I like and am looking for.
I’ll put my other bottles away and revisit them down the road. This does seem to have plenty of stuffing for age.