Yangarra Ovitelli Grenache 2024

98 POINTS

Shanteh Wale - Winepilot

100% Grenache Noir planted in 1946 adjacent to the High sands block. Fermented and matured in ceramic eggs for 11 months. A wine that wins me over year after year and this year completely flummoxes me, swoon worthy at every turn. It opens with rosebud and cherry blossoms, a thrill of violet and pink peppercorn punch. There is a string of bergamot and licorice root savour notes, cardamom pod and a sheath of dry tannins that then  gives way to the red berry core to resurface. A wine that keeps you sipping and swirling for more detail, as it opens up over hours. Its lasting flavours are never ending. A beguiling wine and one of the most emotional and moving vintages to date.Drink with friends and hold them close.

98 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

2027 Grenache of the Year. From Block 30, planted in 1946 by Frederick Smart and his son Bernard, barely in his teens. All in 675L ceramic eggs with four months on skins. The '23s were pale, elegant and riveting. The '24 season was warmer, but the lineage of elegance and medium-bodied finesse continues. This is up there with the best Ovitellis, so fragrant and savoury, so much more enchanting on day two, and even more on days three and four. Dried cranberry and red cherry, pomegranate, dehydrated and ground orange peel, pressed and fresh wildflowers. The nose is mesmerising, swirling with rose, musk, wild fennel and medina spice, heady with exotica. Transparent, nothing heavy or sweet, just such poise, such harmony, nothing out of place, yet nothing forced or over polished. The tannins are fine, chewy and layered, the length spectacular.

97 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2024 Ovitelli Grenache is a confluence of two important elements: the first is the warm year defined by amplitude and florals, and the second is the process of maturation, whereby this wine is matured exclusively in concrete egg, which emphasizes the austerity of the tannins and enhances the focus of the palate. Together, the wine looks both supple and tightly coiled, and it bears all the hallmarks of aging impressively well over the week it has been open, and decades into the future too. This is a super wine.

96 POINTS

Ray Jordan - Winepilot

These Grenache Noir vines were planted in 1946, right alongside the High Sands block. Once again, ceramic eggs have been used. The fermentation and then time on skins before maturation for 11 months. This is largely free run. In fact, no oak has been used. Once again, that pretty vibrancy is well to the fore, and it captures so much of what Grenache from this region is all about, certainly when it’s handled in such a sympathetic, compassionate way. It’s bright, it’s vervey, great energy, and with beautiful texture and flavours. It’s a superb wine.

94 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

From a two hectare block planted in 1946. Fermented and left in 675L ceramic eggs for about three months. It’s quite a playful and juicy wine as at now, packed with raspberry, dusty spice, rosehip and mint tea. Medium-bodied, redcurrant, raspberry and cranberry, a discreet sweetness to it, but also something of a clay-like earthiness and grip to pumice stone tannin, a freshness to acidity, mixed peel, and again that aromatic herbal tea perfume carries on a husky finish of excellent length. The structure and freshness is excellent here, though it needs a little more time to shed some of that confiture character, of which I’m sure it will. Tasting it again after being open for a day seems to have worked a charm.