Yangarra High Sands Grenache 1500ml 2021

99 POINTS

Ray Jordan - Winepilot

One of the great Grenache, comes from a high-altitude vineyard planted in 1946 into deep sandy soils. There were 50% whole berries, used with the wild yeast ferment in open fermenters with a longer maceration period. Matured in a mix of Austrian and French oak foudres, puncheons and ceramic eggs. Captures the sweet succulence of the vintage with high end perfumes a feature. Medium bodied but extraordinarily rich and complex with layers of flavours building a powerful and very long palate profile. Great wine.

98 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

High Sands is always a landmark wine, a site-reflective icon of peerless husbandry and elaboration, but it can be imposing, needing time and reflection. This is different, though, finely tuned, lucid, silky and sophisticated, and feeling even more expressive of place. A great, cool vintage, yes, with both depth and levity, but Pete Fraser’s quarter turns of the screw are also palpable. Fruits are red and black, ripe but with some tart wild tension, dusted in heady baharat spicing, the heartbeat of old-vine power pulsing insistently within. Flavour descriptors feel ineffectual, though. It’s the sheer graceful power of the thing that’s so beguiling, as it noiselessly swoops in, catching you in the updraft of its immense wingspan. By any measure, this is a great wine.

98 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

2021 was a lauded vintage in South Australia. It was long, mild and dry during the growing season and well set up with healthy yields due to favorable conditions during flowering in the spring of 2020. Here, the 2021 High Sands Grenache is just starting to emerge from its shell—the tannins that wrap around the fruit are layered with graphite and dusted licorice, dried rose petals and paprika dolce. The fruit is pure and speaks of soft black cherry and pomegranate. This is a wine that, in the context of this lineup, has only just emerged from "inchoate" and will, like the others, have an extraordinarily long life ahead of it. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

97 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2021 High Sands Grenache leads with spicy oak and juicy, salty fruit. It has a salted humbug candy nature about it, alongside blonde tobacco and green tea, graphite and blood, Boscobel rose and caper brine. The wine is both lush and lean, defined by its score of very fine, profuse, chewy tannins. The discussion of fermentation/maturation vessels in Grenache is rife, with many astute palates gravitating toward egg or amphora for their purity and unfettered expression within the wines. I am less dogmatic and more inclined to swing as a weather vane does in high wind, toward cuvées that I feel express the place, regardless of their vessels. The place in this case is McLaren Vale, specifically the old High Sands bush vine block, planted in 1946. While the oak is evident in this wine, it softens the fruit and texturally creates what I perceive to be a more subtle texture and nuance within the wine. 2021 was a beautiful season in McLaren Vale, and it shows in this superb wine. This is an excellent wine, with a significant price hike this year. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

96 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - JamesSuckling.com

Often the best grenache at this stellar site and certainly the most robust, without any sense of excess of heaviness. Sandalwood, campfire and almost pithy red cherry and amaro liqueur notes. Some tamarind and sarsaparilla. It’s not dissimilar to top nebbiolo, both flavor-wise and structurally. The finish is juicy but tightly wound, auguring for a long future in the cellar. Drinkable now, but best from 2029.

96 POINTS

David Sly - Decanter

The specific terroir of this site – 1946 bush vines planted in a 1.7ha block of deep, ancient sand – offers a compelling vintage story worth following. There are undeniable signature notes of rich satsuma plum, dazzling fresh raspberry and a hint of clove, but its fragile beauty always shows vintage variation. This year, the excitement is in the finish – with deeper, darker blackberry notes bound in biting black tannins that hang and persist. It provides a complexity that strikes almost at counterpoint to its long, silky mid-palate, but that’s why this Grenache expression is so special.

94 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Gosh, the price makes a statement about Australian Grenache. Cherry, raspberry, biscuit spice and mint/menthol, saline too, with a rosy perfume. It’s a bold wine, and the spicy oak certainly shows some impact (especially after tasting the Ovitelli), there’s a lot of grip and flesh to tannin, and there’s something of a sizzled sage leaf flavour in the wine too. Maybe it’s a little bit warm in alcohol, and the tannin feels a little furry, though there’s no shortage of flavour and impact, and its length and power augers well for time in the cellar.