2017 Force Majeure Parvata Force Majeure Vineyard

Another great vintage for this cuvée, which was first released in 2015, the 2017 Parvata is based on 43% Mourvèdre, 25% Grenache, 25% Syrah, and the rest Counoise and Cinsault. It’s a powerful, backward effort (not surprising, given the high Mourvèdre content) and offers lots of bloody, iron-laced blue fruits, violets, incense, herbes de Provence, and peppery spices on the nose. These carry to a full-bodied red that has beautiful fruit, terrific overall balance, and building yet ripe tannins. It’s terrific, but it needs 3-4 years of bottle age, at which point it’s going to evolve for at least a decade.

Bright ruby-red. Lovely verve to the aromas of blackberry, blueberry, licorice and sexy oak. Densely packed and fresh, with its flavors of crushed blackberry, bitter chocolate, licorice and exotic Asian spices showing much more grip than the 2015 bottling. Still a bit youthfully rigid today and in need of a year or two of patience. My second bottle showed similar aromas and flavors but was richer, broader and more pliant, finishing with ripe, fine-grained tannins and building length. (14.8% alcohol; aged in 25% new French oak, mostly 400- and 500-liter barrels; 3.89 pH)

The 2017 Parvata is a blend of Mourvèdre, Grenache and Syrah that shows precision, focus and mineral tension, along with a core of red fruit tones, including wild strawberry, dark cherry and spiced red plums. Medium to full-bodied and clean on the palate, the wine has soft red spices and structured grainy tannins, with subtle oak spices on the correct and expressive finish. Showing well now, this wine is slated to be released in 2020. Only 420 cases made.