For me, some grapes can be chameleons, depending on where they are grown and how they are made. Grenache is at or near the top of the list.
Does it taste like Grenache from Chateauneuf, Priorat, Barossa or SQN???
Yes, I know that SQN is not a place 
Except for the airport in Indonesia
Okay, I understand what you are saying . . .
If a wine ONLY shows ‘varietal character’, it would be lacking anything that makes it ‘special’ beyond that. That said, many wines do not even meet the bar of ‘varietal character’, however you want to define it (and this is not meant at SQN or any specific producer - just in general).
Cheers
SQN wines taste more like SQN than the varieties and locations in which they are grown. The house style dominates. I am not saying that this is bad or good, it just is. At least to my palate.
Indeed. Like the distinction between ‘generic’ Bourgogne Rouge and a ‘fine’ Grand Cru.
But again, this stuff is such a moving target. Wines move in and out of these varietal/terroir phases.
Which contradicts many above that say they don’t stand out in tastings or blind.
I agree there is a barrel spice note that goes across many of the regular release wines, but no different than how young Palmer smells or other BDX.
This rings quite true…
SQN tastes like SQN… which if you like the wine - is great! if you don’t (myself included) - you avoid it.
That’s not uncommon… I feel like a burg like Liger Belair is house style dominant as well. if you like the house style - that’s fantastic… if you don’t… not so much
Hilariously, that brings up memories of one of the few times I’ve ever tried SQN. It was 2000 and it was before Minetta was reborn and the food was truly bad, but they would accommodate a bunch of wine geeks bringing bottles, so there we went. Some people from that night are still around (e.g. @Jayson_Cohen @Jay_Miller) while others have sadly passed. A nice throwback to the wine interwebs circa 2000:
While I have fond memories of many meals at the old Minetta I wasn’t at that one. But I’ve been horrified to try SQN on several other occasions
Yeah I suspect that SQN grenache would probably hang out well with other grenache-heavy CDPs and Rhone wines. And when I drink SQN red, it usually makes me think of a Rhone blend that has great complexity.
Tbf the wine is usually just under 80% Grenache with the rest being Syrah, Mourvedre, Viognier, Touriga, or PS in varying degrees if included.
wow!
The last time I had a SQN Grenache, it was like pancake syrup. I could not drink more than a modest sip, it was so sweet. There are probably some CDPs like that (some in 2007, for example), but I think SQN is a Grenache outlier, not a benchmark.
We will have to disagree on that one.
When we were young. That may have been the first time we met.
Having attended quite a few NYC tastings, one of the highlights was always @Jay_Miller 's reaction to the reds that @J_a_y_H_a_c_k would pour!
It was and we were. I wasn’t even 30 yet. Vulgar little monkey indeed.
@Jay_Miller would never enjoy SQN. But that’s OK. More for me. And his reaction to the Pax I poured for him at the first Peter Lugeresque is forever saved in photographic form - if I could only find it. 
That Lugeresque was fun. Surprised Jay did not know enough to avoid the Pax.
I don’t like to deny other Jay his small pleasures 
I don’t wish to necro a dead thread but coincidentally an article called “The Aging Conundrum” just dropped on LPB’s The Wine Independent site (paywall).
Not sayin’ she’s right or that anyone who posted in this thread is wrong, but the article offers an interesting review/commentary on the age-ability of SQN post migration to estate grown fruit. I’m sure there will be a wide range of agreement and dissent, but her observations match my own personal experiences and her assessment comes from a more formal empirical orientation rather than from theoretical extrapolation.