2021 Torbreck Les Amis Grenache

Dense black dark red colour with a dark red hue. Potent black raspberry, liquorice and ripe black cherry aromas engulf the nostrils followed by vanillin oak, scorched earth and hints of dark chocolate. Liqueur like in its richness, concentration and power, the palate is drenched in black raspberry, liquorice and black cherry fruits. Thick voluptuous texture with toasty vanillin oak, scorched earth, bacon fat and pepper characters lingering through the back half. Velvet smooth tannins with traces of heat on the long decadent finish.
Drink over the next 5-6 years.
Alc. 15%

Other Reviews…..
The 2021 Les Amis Grenache is spicy and wide, meaty and yet floral, with black tea, dried rose petals, graphite, roast beef crust, a hint of pastrami, blood orange and salted macadamias. The wine is shaped by charry oak (matured in barrique as opposed to Harris and Hillside foudre). This lends an altogether different angle to the wine, and I must admit, I quite like it. The oak is in the charry, bacon fat, pipe resin, tobacco spectrum, and it sits very well with the sweet, floral fruit. This is a very interesting wine here. Drink 2024-2036.
94 points
Erin Larkin – Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate

The Slade vineyard in Greenock produces this atypically dense, well-structured Grenache, with a firmer acid and tannin profile than most. In a milder vintage – and with a little whole-bunch ferment – it throws long and reveals a little more of itself when, sometimes, Les Amis can feel impenetrable. Nonetheless, it retains savoury nuance, with medicinal, cough sweet herbaceousness and a touch of eucalyptus to the red-fruited, warming kirsch core. Drink 2025-2035.
95 points
Decanter