UnwindWine: Force Majeure Parvata Red Blend with Beef Bourgogne

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Force Majeure Parvata Red Blend with Beef Bourgogne

Linda prepared a delicious hearty beef bourgogne stew and I wanted a proper wine to pair for the occasion - something big and bold, but not overpowering, and complex to meld with the breadth and depth of flavors. I chose this Parvata Rhone varietal red blend from Force Majeure for its complexity of the blend.

We first featured this label in our Force Majeure Vineyards Site Visit and Tasting report.

Force Majeure Parvata Red Blend 2017

We originally discovered and acquired this label during our visit to Force Majeure in Walla Walla back in 2018. We hold three vintages of a mixed case from our wine club allocation orders.

This is from their Force Majeaure Red Mountain Vineyard site in the central Columbia Valley. The Red Mountain site was the very first vineyard on the steep, rocky upper slopes of Red Mountain. Developing the Red Mountain estate vineyards involved carefully matching varietal and clonal selections and vineyard trellising and irrigation to the eight distinct soil types in the vineyard.

Parvata means “mountain” in sanskrit, and hence is the name for Force Majeure's southern Rhône style blend, grown in the sandy, loamy soils of the lower section of the Red Mountain vineyard.

Parvata is a a classic Rhone River Blend that the French, and in the new World, the Australians, call GSM, for the blend of the three Rhone varietals, (25%) Grenache, (23%) Syrah, and (42%) Mourvedre.

But this 2017 Parvata is a blend of Rhone varietals, somewhere between a GSM (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre) and a CDP (Chateauneuf-du-Pape of which 70% is typicall GSM, the total can be from a possible thirteen sanctioned varietals). This release is 42% Mourvedre, 25% Grenache, 23% Syrah, and 'lesser' varietals, 4% Cinsault and 5% Counoie - 100% sourced from the Force Majeure Red Mountain Estate vineyard.

We've posted blogspots of the 2015 and 2016 releases but this is our first tasting of the 2017 release. It seems to be less fruit forward than the earlier releases.

Dark garnet colored, medium full bodied, this is black fruits accented by white pepper, dried herbs, leather and tobacco notes with bright lively acidity.

RM 92 points.

The 2015 seemed to more fruit forward, more the style we love, with its dark blackish garnet purple colored, full bodied, rich unctuous concentrated black and blue fruits accented by white pepper and tones of dried herbs with bright lively acidity.