The newest wine is an amazing effort and could easily rival, if not eclipse the Hautes Garrigues with 5-6 years of bottle age. The 2007 Gigondas Grand Grenache 66 comes from some of the oldest Grenache vines Yves Gras has. The color is inky purple, and the wine more backward than the Les Hautes Garrigues, which is somewhat surprising. Notes of crushed rocks (chalk), kirsch, and blacker fruits intermixed with hints of truffle and forest floor are followed by a full-bodied, sensationally concentrated wine with massive extract and high tannins. This wine has great purity and is bursting with potential. Certainly, if you can find this relatively limited-production item, 3-4 years of bottle age is warranted, but it should keep for 25+ years. It is a great effort and well-worth searching out.Yves Gras is one of the great personalities of the southern Rhone, and I always enjoy my visits with him. Aside from his passion and singular personality is his exceptional talent for winemaking and vineyard management. First, as I have indicated in the past, he has a small negociant operation. There are very few efforts in 2008 under the “Santa Duc Selection” moniker because of the challenging vintage; he did show me three wines. The estate wines in 2008 include only one cuvee of Gigondas, as there will be no Les Hautes Garrigues produced, or his new baby, the Grand Grenache 66. The three cuvees of 2007 are certainly the finest wines I have tasted from Yves Gras since I started visiting him in the mid-1980s.Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083
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