Well worth its $35, with  14.5% alcohol and scoring 18 gold medal points on the Dionysian 20-point scale, the 2015 Kay Brothers Basket Pressed Grenache showed beautifully. It can age another decade, and it red fruits,  herbs,  and spicy aroma will continue to gain complexity.

Kay Brothers has been doing wine for over 125 years,  and this McLaren Vale wine came from the Amery Vineyard in Australia.

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The grapes were hand harvested on the 18th of March at the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. The wine spent 13 days with the skins before seeing the old basket press extracting deep color and ripe tannins.

The French oak marries with the Morello cherry and strawberry aromas as they rise through aromatic rose pedal almost suggesting some Cabernet Franc of which, I’m told, there is none. Its deep garnet robe tells how young the wine still is.

Estate grown, produced and bottled by a winery that wants to maintain  its historical integrity. Well done!  It a wine to drink with special friends at an important event.  In Vino Veritas.