2020 Mourvedre Old Garden

The Old Garden vineyard was planted in 1853, and these are the same ungrafted vines that were planted 170 years ago. Hailing from the warm, low-yielding 2020 season, this 2020 Old Garden Mourvèdre is showing so much more oak than I was expecting. Earthy mulberries, ferrous, iodine and blackcurrant are buried inside an oak casket. Charry, resinous, sticky chai spice defines the oak, with a malt/Ovaltine quality in the mouth. The tannins are gritty and intense... perhaps all of this is a reflection of the growing season and the experience and travails of these old vines. While this may well come together in time, for now this is too gritty and oak-framed for my taste. I'm here for the fruit. 14% alcohol, sealed under Diam. On another note, it is humbling to taste a wine made from fruit grown on vines that are so old: 170 years spans both World Wars and the Vietnam war, the Depression, the Spanish Flu and later COVID-19, droughts, floods, the birth and death of generations of people tending the vines, 170 teams of pruners and pickers over the seasons and every single one of the more than 62,000 days that they have been in the ground... It really is something.