Review: 2021 Epoch Gratitude Paso Robles

Epoch is a Paso Robles wine producer with serious charitable goals, in fact it has a wine that’s completely dedicated to them. The Gratitude program is a collaborative project that has generated over $43,000 for charitable causes across three vintages so far, including support for victims of the LA wildfires and the central Texas floods. (Gratitude is just the beginning of the winery’s charity work, which has generated over half a million dollars in support.)

Here’s how the wine has come together:

The story of Gratitude spans three vintages and three continents. The first Gratitude (2018 vintage, released in 2020) was a Barossa Valley Grenache made in collaboration with Michael Twelftree of Two Hands Winery in Australia. For the second and third vintages, Epoch winemaker Jordan Fiorentini and Anne Charlotte Melia of Château de la Font du Loup in Châteauneuf-du-Pape planted a block together at Epoch’s Paderewski Vineyard.The two selected a heritage CdP Grenache clone, chose own-rooted vines trained in the traditional head-trained gobelet style, and co-planted Clairette Blanche (a white Rhône variety) with the red Grenache to mimic the field blends of ancient southern French vineyards.

We got a sample of 2021 Gratitude (92% Grenache, 8% Clairette Blanche), aged in neutral oak. $20 from the sale of each bottle is donated to the Paso Robles Salvation Army..

Hearty and smoldering, this wine jumps out of the gate with powerful notes of anise, bittersweet chocolate, and reduced blackberries in syrup, making for a decadent — and  boozy, at 15.1% abv — entree to the wine. As it develops the wine takes on more of a cherry and raspberry character, with latent flavors of brewed tea and tobacco leaf. A late-game touch of tomato leaf adds a particularly savory component, though the finish brightens up with some sweetness and a return to plump, red berries. All of this coalesces as the wine fades away; the last thing to go is a whip of licorice candy — sweeter than I expected.

B+ / $75

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