Torbreck Les Amis 2018
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Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast -
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Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Alluring and seductive aromatic red fruits such as sour cherry mulberry, red currant and wild raspberry. Secondary notes of Chinese five spice, sarsaparilla, star anise are balanced by wet earth and cinnamon spice. Cleansing acidity drives the finish fresh with plenty of mid palate texture. Old vine Grenache complexities and full-bodied depth with firm but balanced drying tannins give the wine plenty of time to mature in the cellar for 8-15 years.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Showing enormous intensity and length, the 2018 Les Amis Grenache is a tremendous success. Yes, the oak slightly overshadows the fruit on the nose, where cedary notes ride easily over ripe cherries, but it recedes into the background in the mouth, allowing waves of black cherries, red raspberries and exotic spice notes to come forward and expand on the full-bodied palate. Plush and creamy-textured, it's nevertheless refined and elegant on the finish, which turns silky and spicy, with lingering notes of red berries, licorice and cola.
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James Suckling
All grenache here, this single parcel has a very rich and ripe feel with a wood-framed array of currant and pomegranate on the nose. The palate is a fuller-bodied style with bold tannins and a round, darker-fruit spectrum of flavor. Try from 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
From vines across Barossa's western range, this is quite different from Hillside. It's an ultrachocolaty, rich Grenache with notes of blueberry, fig, ganache, violet, warm earth and comforting spices. The hug-in-a-glass silkiness continues on the palate. There's a good lick of high-end oak showing, but the plush fruit compensates. A little too polished in style for this reviewer's taste, but it's a neatly wrapped package of plushness that should age well until 2029 or so.
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Wine Spectator
Elegant, sleek and polished, offering juicy framboise, maraschino cherry and raspberry flavors that show details of fresh mint, sage and tobacco, with appealing purity and transparency. Grenache. Drink now.
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Torbreck, founded in 1994 by David Powell, is situated at Marananga on the western ridge of the Barossa. Since that time he has produced some of the world's finest 'Rhone varietal' wines, exclusively from Barossa fruit; this has been acknowledged by the wine press in Europe, America and Australia. The overwhelming majority of his vines are dry-grown, nearly all are 80 - 125 years old and are tended and harvested by hand.
The wines have an extraordinary combination of power, intesity, complexity and great finesse, and bearing in mind the age of the vines and the laughably low yields, no Torbreck wine could ever be accused of being heavy, cloying or over-extracted.
Grenache thrives in any warm, Mediterranean climate where ample sunlight allows its clusters to achieve full phenolic ripeness. While Grenache's birthplace is Spain (there called Garnacha), today it is more recognized as the key player in the red blends of the Southern Rhône, namely Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Côtes du Rhône and its villages. Somm Secret—The Italian island of Sardinia produces bold, rustic, single varietal Grenache (there called Cannonau). California, Washington and Australia have achieved found success with Grenache, both flying solo and in blends.
Historically and presently the most important wine-producing region of Australia, the Barossa Valley is set in the Barossa zone of South Australia, where more than half of the country’s wine is made. Because the climate is very hot and dry, vineyard managers work diligently to ensure grapes reach the perfect levels of phenolic ripeness.
The intense heat is ideal for plush, bold reds, particularly Shiraz on its own or Rhône Blends. Often Shiraz and Cabernet partner up for plump and powerful reds.
While much less prevalent, light-skinned varieties such as Riesling, Viognier or Semillon produce vibrant Barossa Valley whites.
Most of Australia’s largest wine producers are based here and Shiraz plantings date back as far as the 1850s or before. Many of them are dry farmed and bush trained, still offering less than one ton per acre of inky, intense, purple juice.