Today’s wine was awarded a 97 point score by James Halliday and named to his Top 100 Wines of 2017 list. For good reason… This wine is stupendous!.

You may want to stop reading and just click that big red buy button, Operative! Today’s stunning 97 point (James Halliday) wine from Australia’s Chapel Hill Winery, the delicious 2016 McLaren Vale Bush Vine Grenache. This dense, opaque, gem of a wine is ripe and opulent, with a pleasing punch to the senses.

This wine has an almost completely opaque density with a ruby coloring consistent from core to edge. The nose hits you right out of the gate with a lovely, bright wave of violets, segueing into allspice and white pepper before a crescendo of raspberry and cardamom. It’s very nice and lively on the palate too, with flavors of boysenberry, white pepper, cigar box, violets and orange marmalade. This wine packs quite a fruit-forward punch considering it has a lighter-weight body, making this wine tasty and almost too quaffable. It is hard to stop drinking!

Wines of the McLaren Vale are something uniquely special. They stand out from other Aussie wines in some very important ways, in terms of aromatics, mouthfeel and flavor profile. McLaren Vale wines are big, Big, BIG…. but always very pleasing, without any of the brashness often associated with wines from other ‘big wine’ regions.

Chapel Hill Winery, in Australia’s McLaren Vale (less than 26 miles from Adelaide) is one of Australia’s finest. Their practice of gentle, patient winemaking gives their wines a hand-made feel. Their respect and care for their vineyards are legendary. And every Chapel Hill wine we’ve ever tasted has knocked our socks off.

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Here’s what the wine press has to say.

97 Points & Top 100 Wines of 2017 - James Halliday - “The bouquet sings of spices that prostrate themselves at the feet of the flow of cherry, raspberry and strawberry fruits (plus those spices from the bouquet) with nary a hint of remotely tough tannins, oak conspicuous by its absence. Takes purity onto a seldom seen level.”

Gold Medal - Royal Melbourne Wine Awards 2017

Gold Medal - Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2017