Yalumba drops a wonderfully lucid Grenache and it’s just $40

Hat tip, Yalumba, you’ve done it again. One of the country’s oldest family-owned wineries, still lobbing up with classical wines for fair dollars. The only thing I don’t like about the new Yalumba Vat 11 Grenache 2023 is the name – another Vat or a bin wine? Meh. This is such delightful new wave Aussie Grenache regardless – lithe, bright, only medium-bodied, with no oak and maximum lucidity. Sourced from a vineyard planted in the ’60s in Marananga, there’s just a little of the viscosity and thickness of a riper wine – which translated into a raspberry syrup edge, but the overall feel is of redcurrant and red licorice energy and warmth, with that old vine depth and limitless feel too. You could argue for more tannins and expanse through the finish, but that might cost it some life as well. Can’t argue with the proposition here for $40.

THE VERDICT

• Best drinking: I'd drink this over the next decade
• Score (out of 20): 18.5
• Score (out of 100): 94
• Alcohol %: 14.5
• RRP (in $AUD): 40
• Winery website: https://www.yalumba.com/
• Would I buy it?: sure would