Description
TOR Wines Kick Ranch vineyard Grenache 2016
Varietal: Grenache
92 points – Jeb Dunnuck
‘Over the last four decades, I’ve walked almost every corner of the Napa Valley striving to understand exactly what makes a great wine. When I founded TOR Wines, the plan was simple. Our wines would come from only the best blocks in great vineyard sites I knew and revered.’
–Tor Kenward
The Vineyard: Kick Ranch is considered one of Sonoma’s “marquee vineyards”; a nirvana for Rhone varieties. Just off Calistoga Road, on the western foothills of Spring Mountain within the Mayacamas mountain range, it is cooled by winds that blow straight through the Petaluma Gap. These winds, along with the gentle hillside slopes and deep soils with river gravels washed from the mountains naturally devigorate the vines resulting in tiny clusters with tiny berries. They gave us Grenache with wonderful depth and mid palate sumptuousness in a cool-climate elegant style.
The Vintage: To put it simply – this was one of our great modern vintages in the Napa Valley. It almost had a Bordeaux feeling to it – moderate rainfall for all but three months before the real rains arrived in October. By then, everything was in the barn. No significant heat spikes, which made for a very long, even growing season. The only complaint I had with all our vineyard sites was, I wish I had harvested more grapes. Cluster size and weights were down, and we were 20% off average when we finished picking. It was one of those years you wish you just had more grapes. Spectacular quality, both reds and whites. The wines have deep colors, structure, concentration, and depth of flavor
