What a wine!
I had ordered this wine two years ago and The Chicago Wine Company had kindly held onto it, in great storage conditions, since then.
This is my first experience with Grange and I knew it required the right circumstances to fully enjoy. So when we had the opportunity to have a dinner at Indienne in Chicago (a Michelin star Indian restaurant), this seemed perfect.
Now, I'm a huge believer in red wine with Indian food, even it runs contrary to traditional wine pairing theory and have had great success with this in the past. Syrah/Shiraz and spicy Indian is probably one of the easiest combinations I can go for, so why not use one of the best expressions of Syrah in the world alongside a top Indian restaurant?
I walked the bottle over to the restaurant and it received 3.5 hours of decanting before we sat down. We enjoyed a separate glass of wine prior before attacking this, so it probably received just under five hours in the decanter before we started drinking it.
Picked up a huge bouquet of notes over the course of the dinner.
Dark plum, plum skins, blackberry, dark cherry, pomegranate.
Alongside, elaichi (cardamom), laung (clove), cocoa powder, and even macchiato. Surprisingly, didn't pick up any prominent black pepper notes, which you'd expect in a Shiraz.
This has amazing structure and balance between fruit, acidity, and tannins.
This is still very young and will likely get better over time!
How was Indienne? Normally, I'm a little skeptical on "elevated" Indian, but this was a winner all the way through. The food felt like real Indian food, made well, with a more creative presentation. And the wine paired even better than I could have imagined.
Give this a four hour decant before starting and enjoy the evolution of the wine!
94+ points.
by rnjbond