2016 Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre Angove Family WInemakers

Credit Angove

90 points, AppellationsTen, Michael Rockich

I have long been a fan of the GSM blend from France’s Rhone Valley.  But that’s not the only place to find Rhone style wines.  I want to mention my recent encounter with an attractive Australian GSM.

The wine is the 2016 Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre from Angove Family Winemakers within their Family Crest brand and under the Trinchero Family Estates umbrella.  This wine boasts several attention getters, including McLaren Vale fruit, and definitely merits a look. Standouts are great purity, a really smooth texture, not to mention ripe sweet fruit and tannins!  It also lies in a beckoning price-performance window!

Dr. William Thomas Angove emigrated from Cornwall, England, to establish a medical practice in Australia, and eventually founded the Angove Family Winemakers in 1886, currently the largest producer of organic wines in Australia.  Angove’s flagship wine, Angove the Medhyk, seems appropriately named.  In Cornish, Medhyk means “doctor”.

Grape sources for this 2016 GSM are Grenache, from the Swann vineyard’s sandy soils in Blewitt Spring, and from Angove’s organic Warboys vineyard. The Shiraz grapes were harvested from the Cheasley vineyard in the Sellicks Hills and also the organic Paxton “Jones” block.  The Mourvèdre source was Balanave’s vineyard also in Sellicks Hills.

In the cellar, the grapes were crushed, destemmed, and each parcel was fermented according to taste. Grapes were pressed in a restored basket press, maturing in 2nd and 3rd use French oak puncheons and hogsheads for nine months before the final blending percentages of 40% Grenache, 34% Shiraz, and 26% Mourvèdre.

Opaque dark-brick-ruby, is this 2016 GSM by Angove, with a nose of fresh red-cherries.  Pleasant sour cherry manifests initially on the palate along with refreshing acidity.  Most notable are the smoothness, purity, and ripe, sweet fruit and structuring, well unified tannins.  Delivers juicy impact with good intensity throughout while finishing long.   Pocketbook friendly.  About $22.

A sample for review.