#513 Lieben Tannat 2020
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Tannat is the most heavily armed grape in wine. Most grapes run one tannin factory; Tannat was born with two. When scientists sequenced its genome in 2013 they found almost 2,000 genes an ordinary wine grape simply doesn’t have, and the tannin and colour genes sat almost entirely among them. Then it packs four seeds into every berry, where most grapes manage two, and seed tannin is the grippy kind that grabs the protein in your saliva and doesn’t let go.
Young Tannat is not a wine you reason with. Which is why, in 1991, a grower in Madiran built a machine that bubbled oxygen through his fermenting wine until the tannins grew big enough to behave — a technique now used in red-wine cellars all over the world.
So what happens if you simply leave one alone for six years instead? Alwyn Liebenberg said this 2020 would be ready now. We opened it exactly on his word, and the brute arrived wearing velvet.
TASTING NOTES
Aromas: A deep, rich wave of ripe blackberry comes first, then licorice, a touch of cloves, dried purple flowers and cocoa dust. Multifaceted, with a strong fruit core layered under moody, dark spice.
Palate: Almost opaque in the glass, superbly inky. The palate is rich and powerful — blackberry, black plum, even prunes — with a savoury, almost roasted edge to the fruit and a vivid, juicy acidity like maraschino cherry skins. The tannins are surprisingly soft for a wine this dark, six years in bottle having let them fold in on themselves. Velvety is the word: the fruit concentration lies like velvet over what can be brutal Tannat grip. The 15% alcohol is nowhere to be found, hidden completely by black fruit.
TECHNICAL SPECS
Made by Alwyn Liebenberg for his family label, Lieben, from Stellenbosch fruit, and aged in a mix of new and older French oak — roughly a fifth of it new. It is built for the long haul: Alwyn’s own instruction is that you need five to six years in bottle before you open one, which makes this 2020 a wine arriving exactly on schedule. The colour, he says, never fades. The grip is what changes.
Alc. just over 15% | Acid 6.4 g/L | pH 3.4 |
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