Momento, Grenache Noir, 2023

Marelise Niemann launched Momento in 2013 while still making wine at Beaumont, and Grenache has been at the heart of the project ever since. This bottling comes from bush vines on decomposed granite in the Paardeberg, in South Africa's Swartland — the very first parcel she bought back in 2011, and the wine that defines the Momento style. Hand-harvested, partially whole-cluster, native-yeast fermented, and matured for sixteen months in old foudre and old French oak, it's a Grenache of restraint and lift: red-fruited, savory, and translucent rather than jammy. A South African Grenache that has more in common with the northern Mediterranean than the Cape stereotype.