Grenache in Three Colours

Dear,

around 2000, Grenache was the second most widely planted grape variety in the world. By 2016 it had fallen to seventh place, and in Spain nearly half of all Garnacha vineyard area had vanished. Brussels paid for grubbing up, and those who wanted to switch received money for the new vine. On the flat, fertile plains where Garnacha cropped heavily but tasted of little, growers took the money, and in its place came Tempranillo, Cabernet and Syrah, or simply nothing.

What remained standing was what wasn't worth grubbing up: bush vines on white limestone, granite sand at eight hundred metres, slate slopes where mules plough. It is precisely there that the variety comes good, with little colour in the glass, plenty of scent, raspberry and thyme, and a tannin you feel rather than taste. Since 2011 the variety has had its own day, the third Friday of September, this year the 18th, and to mark it there are six of them in a case: five from slopes like these between Navarra and Roussillon, in all three colours: Noir, Blanc and Gris, and a sixth from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where the variety was never in danger.

Navarra · Gredos · Priorat · Montsant · Roussillon · Châteauneuf‑du‑Pape

One click adds all six wines to your basket at once. There you can remove or swap individual bottles, or add more; it is a suggestion, not a closed set. The average price works out at just over thirty-eight euros per wine.

Artazu

Above the village of Artazu, in the Atlantic north of Navarra, bush vines grow on white limestone up to six hundred metres, spread across fifteen small parcels, and in the oldest of them stand vines that survived phylloxera. Working them is possible only by hand.

Juan Carlos López de Lacalle, who built Artadi in Rioja, purchased the village's derelict cooperative and farms the parcels organically. The Santa Cruz is the selection from these, aged for around a year in 500-litre barrels.

Jiménez-Landi

Further south. Piélago is the mountain above El Real de San Vicente in the Sierra de Gredos, west of Madrid, and Piélago is the wine the Jiménez-Landi family draws from its slopes, Garnacha from old vines on granite sand at eight hundred metres, farmed organically, according to the estate, since 1963. It is from this family that Daniel Jiménez-Landi comes, who through Comando G made the Garnacha of these mountains known beyond Spain.

The Piélago is fermented with all the stems and, depending on the parcel, spends up to forty days on the skins. In the glass it is pale; the variety's thin skin gives no more colour than that, and yet the label reads 14.5 per cent, because at this altitude Garnacha ripens slowly, and the acidity holds.

Familia Nin Ortiz

From granite to slate: above Porrera in the Priorat, mules pull the plough because the terraces permit nothing else. Ester Nin and Carles Ortiz designed their estate from the outset with this in mind, and every cork carries the declaration that biodynamic farming has been practised here from the very first day. Ester Nin came via Mas Martinet and Clos i Terrasses; Carles Ortiz brought the Finca Les Planetes on the edge of the village.

The Planetes terraces are the estate's younger vines, planted at a time when Garnacha was being pulled up elsewhere in Spain. From them comes the Planetes, Garnatxa and Carinyena with a little Garnatxa Peluda, fermented predominantly as whole bunches, aged for eighteen months in large wood and amphora, without sulphur until bottling.

Alfredo Arribas

Just across the border from the Priorat, in Montsant, the colour changes. Between Masroig and Marçà stand old vines of Garnatxa Blanca, alongside a parcel of the grey, and from these comes the Trossos Sants. Alfredo Arribas was an architect in Barcelona before he turned to winemaking here. He designed the estate himself, in Corten steel and rubble stone.

The Trossos Sants is fermented in steel and rests for only a few months, a third of that time in large oak casks, so that the white fruit remains at the fore.

Roc des Anges

"Sometimes it won't speak when it's young," says Marjorie Gallet of this wine, "like an oyster." Stéphane, with whom she has run the estate since 2008, calls it a wine for people who have time. The two work in Montner in Roussillon, north of the Pyrenees, on slate around the Força Réal, farming biodynamically since 2011. Iglesia Vella is the name of the north-facing parcel, after a church that vanished from up there long ago.

The vines are Grenache Gris from a massal selection of vines planted in 1954, and they yield fifteen hectolitres per hectare. Whole bunches into the press, spontaneous fermentation in wood without added sulphur, then extended ageing.

Domaine de Marcoux

The final wine comes from where the variety never needed a name. In Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Grenache is the dominant variety in almost every bottle; the appellation appears on the label, and where altitude rescued the variety elsewhere, here it was rescued by its name. A hectare of Châteauneuf was always worth more than the grubbing-up premium.

Sophie Armenier runs Domaine de Marcoux with her son Vincent Estevenin, eighteen hectares within the appellation, farmed organically since 1991 and with biodynamic preparations. The family appears in Avignon's tax registers as far back as 1344. Their Châteauneuf is drawn from parcels spread across the appellation: sand, limestone marl and red clay, predominantly Grenache, with Mourvèdre, Syrah and Cinsault. The April frost of 2021 cost the estate roughly half its Grenache crop, and the longer, cooler season gave the vintage finesse.

Ready for Grenache Day?

The letter follows the map, the glass follows the colour: the white and the grey want ten to twelve degrees, the Piélago half an hour in the fridge, the other three at sixteen to seventeen. Room temperature in September is too warm. The first of them belongs on 18 September, the variety's own day.

1× Artazu Santa Cruz de Artazu 2020 → limestone and phylloxera survivors, Navarra
1× Jiménez-Landi Piélago 2021 → granite, Gredos, all the stems
1× Nin Ortiz Planetes 2019 → young terraces in the Priorat, no sulphur
1× Arribas Trossos Sants 2023 → the white Garnatxa, Montsant
1× Roc des Anges Iglesia Vella 2021 → the grey, Roussillon
1× Marcoux Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2021 → the finale, sand and red clay

Starting smaller works too: Piélago, Trossos Sants and Iglesia Vella, one of each colour, approx. €98.

We stock a good eighty wines made with Grenache, from affordable Côtes du Rhône to the old vines of the Guix Vermell from Montsant.

Warm regards from Berlin,

Lisa and the team at
Living Wines

P.S.: The seventh glass. From Marcoux there is the Vieilles Vignes 2021, pure Grenache from vines planted between 1900 and 1959, around 4,000 bottles. Dusty earth, black cherry, liquorice and garrigue, the tannin like cashmere, 94 points Wine Advocate, 96 Wine Spectator. Drinking beautifully now and through to the mid-2030s. Approx. €137.50.