I knew this wine would be tight so I decanted for roughly an hour and every ten minutes aggressively swirled it. I was excited to try this wine as Grand Reve has been getting lots of love from friends and after spending an evening with Ryan Johnson, this seems to be the exact type of cabernet based wine that I’m currently enjoying. Still a bit tight on the nose even after the decant but noticed some hints of tobacco, sage, dark cherry, and an intriguing note of rosemary in the background. Once the wine started to open up, we were treated with some tightly wrapped dark fruit, cassis, currants, and some formidable tannins. Obviously, being Red Mountain fruit you are going to get big and bold tannins but the key is to have enough of a fruit core to battle these tongue grippers long enough until they fully integrate and this particular wine definitely has the fruit core to last. Both power and finesse on the finish with the power (tannins) slightly ahead of the finesse (fruit). After being on fruit overload from most WA bordeaux blends, this is the type of wine I’m digging on right now. While very enjoyable now, I think once everything fully integrates my score could increase two or three points. 93 pts.
Glad to see you finally got a chance to try a GR. Enjoy the florals on the few I’ve tried. Really looking forward to where this winery and its wines are headed. In good hands!
