2012 Beckmen Vineyards Grenache Big Hands Purisima Mountain 750 ml

2012 Beckmen Vineyards Grenache “Big Hands”: Chateauneuf on Purisima Mountain

“At first we made a mistake with Grenache,” Steve Beckmen told us at the Ontiveros Road tasting room. “We wanted to grow it as we grow Syrah – reining it in, pinching its sprawl. But if you try to impose order on Grenache, it acts like a teenage boy. It’s incorrigible.”

The greatest Grenache in the world – grown in the sandy soils of Chateauneuf-du-Pape – enjoys long growing seasons. Just a few bunches per plant are widely spaced, maximizing aeration, allowing the summer wind to fend off mildew. In the best vintages, at harvest, the berries are packed with sugar, accounting for Chateauneuf’s voluptuous red fruit concentration and briery texture.

In 2006, even as Beckmen Syrah garnered rave reviews from every noteworthy critic, Steve’s Purisima Mountain’s Grenache lagged far behind. One weekend, Beckmen toured the coastline, eyeballing every Grenache planting he could find. Everyone was farming the variety as he was, reining in the plants, packing bunches tightly together, retarding the maturation process while making the clusters more prone to mildew. “We farmed it that way because we didn’t know any better. I felt like I was hitting myself over the head with a hammer before reaching for the aspirin!”

Over the course of the following years, as many gave up on Grenache, Beckmen did the opposite. Rolling the dice on Chateauneuf protocol, vine by vine, he retrained his Grenache terraces, allowing the plants to sprawl, opening up clusters to the Santa Barbara sun. The results were astonishing.

Next time you visit Los Olivos, make a detour for Purisima Mountain. Hop a ride on the back of Steve’s ATV — though it’s not for the faint of heart. In the center of the hillside, get down on one knee and scoop up the fine, dark sand soil. Allow it to sift through your hands, leaving only chunks of white limestone behind. The Grenache vines, free to spread their wings, beam with health and vigor. With just a few clusters per plant, yields are tiny, typically less than two tons per acre — an expensive byproduct of Beckmen’s experiment. One taste of Purisima Mountain Grenache, and particularly the special bottling of “Big Hands” — until today, only offered at the Ontiveros Road tasting room — and you may never spend $40 again for a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape!

We ADORED this wine. Darkest ruby to the rim. Scents of blackberry and mulberry, complicated by great floral complexity and smoky intensity. Plump and ultra-rich on the attack, at once dense and sappy, filled with black raspberry and black cherry preserves, tightly wound, finishing with great breadth and sweet tannin persistence. Drink now-2020.