Last night, I cooked up a batch of jerk chicken using a new batch of jerk sauce that we made from this year's habanero pepper (and sage) crop. Although given my druthers, I'd open an off-dry Chenin or Riesling with food this spicy, Jean prefers red wine with her jerk (not me!
). So I dutifully opened a red wine that I thought wouldn't feel like drinking fire, which in this case was a bottle of
2023 Extradimensional WIne Company Yeah! Grenache Brosseau Vineyard. Hailing from the Chalone district, it tasted characteristically like other CA Grenache I've had (Unti and a couple of others) but lower volume. 12.1% ABV made it tolerable with the jerk chicken and the high acidity and bright red-cherryish fruit held up to the spice. Pretty typical Hardy Wallace-type red, very food friendly and cheerful, though it won't displace any of my favorite S Rhone wines from my affections.
