Grunty

My apologies for not feeding this blog for a while.  Sometimes wine work gets in the way of wine play, though in reality the two merge together.  A night out with the slip-slidey down the snow-covered hill crew gave SWMBO and I the chance to put in a long-held bottle donated by The Grunter.  The wine style he makes tends to be pretty amiable, and approachable, so we expected something mellow to slip down smoothly, like the drinkers do on the mountain. 

But we were a little surprised by the 2007 Redmetal ‘Erinview’ Hawke’s Bay Merlot/Cabernet Franc.  The label we knew is an up-tier version, and from a vintage producing ageworthy wines.  But this had some real grunt to it.  The feature was structure, and all the textures, mouthfeel and grip that is associated with it.  Flavourwise, it was already into the savoury, leathery spectrum, but with plenty of lively, sweet fruit there in gobs, it still needed another decade before the tannins would be evolved.  A little tougher than expected, luckily the WRXers had put on some hearty meaty fare, and it all worked rather well.