2013 Beckmen Vineyards Grenache Estate Santa Ynez Valley 750 ml

The Wine Advocate’s “Killer Value” — Nearly 15% alcohol but you never feel the heat

“At first, we thought Grenache would be easy,” Steve Beckmen as we headed up Purisima Mountain. “It seemed to flourish all over Europe. So much easier than Syrah, we figured. Let’s just say, we figured wrong!” Steve laughed during a pause atop a hillside, before barreling down toward the terraces in the center cut of the hillside. “We had planted Grenache in the perfect spot. Perfect exposure and drainage. But we trellised it as we did Syrah — reining it in, pinching its sprawl. It didn’t take long to figure out that Grenache doesn’t like order.”

This was the viticultural puzzle with which Steve Beckmen was confronted. The greatest Grenache in the world — that grown in the sandy soils of Châteauneuf-du-Pape — enjoys long growing seasons. Head-trained and widely spaced, the vines grow wildly, pushing out instead of up. While these sprawling bush plants can yield a large crop, growers have learned to drop fruit aggressively. Leaving just a few bunches per plant maximizes aeration and allows the summer wind to cleanse each bunch, fending off mildew and disease.

After a half-dozen years of farming his Grenache as he did his Syrah, Steve Beckmen told his dad that they needed to completely retrain their Grenache. Tom, who has poured a fortune into Purisima Mountain, must have rolled his eyes. Then he did exactly as his son suggested.

We hopped off the ATV and scooped up the dark-sand soil, strewn with small chunks of white limestone. We eyeballed the few clusters per plant, each perfectly aerated. The berries were pert, the bunches perfectly uniform. We looked at the crop load — by our estimation barely 2 tons per acre — and calculated the economics behind Steve Beckmen’s viticultural experiment.

The winter of 2012-2013 was exceedingly dry. Bud break came very early with a copious fruit set. Steve told us that his Grenache clusters were loose, yet berry size was unusually small. From May-August the weather was quite warm, but without the torrid heat spikes that can blister clusters. By mid-August, sugars were soaring, yet somehow, acids remained firm. Most importantly, the dry heat made for thick skins and grapes of high skin-to-juice ratio. The first call to harvest came in the third week of August, one of the earliest on record.

The 2013 Beckmen Grenache Estate Santa Ynez may not be as finely delineated as Steve’s 94-point Purisima Mountain, but — 100% destemmed and aged in neutral barrels so as not to mask any of the intense red-and-black-fruit purity of the vintage — it’s perhaps broader and bolder. Opaque purple-ruby to the rim. Explosive aromas of black raspberries, licorice, and sweet spice. Rich, compact, and dense on the attack, filled with black raspberry preserves, almost briery in texture, finishing with great length and sophistication. While the wine comes in at 14.9% in alcohol, due largely to the sumptuous tannins and firm acidity of the extraordinary 2013 vintage, there is absolutely no hint of heat.

92 points from Antonio Galloni. 91 from Parker’s Wine Advocate. $32 on release. Just $23 this morning for one of the top-rated under-$25 California reds of the year. Shipping included on 4.