“Grenache is as indigenous as Australia gets’.
That’s a quote from David Gleave MW, the Liberty Wines chairman and Willunga 100 co-founder, getting enthused about Grenache at the recent Grenaissance tasting at Sydney. Yes, he’s built his entire Australian wine business around Grenache, and obvs drunk the Kool-Aid a little to be calling Grenache a native to Aussie shores. But it’s also hard to argue that Grenache doesn’t have the history, or the suitability to be half Aussie anyway. isn’t well-suited to many of the warm and dry wine regions on which the local industry is built.
More importantly, Grenache, and indeed a swathe of Mediterranean grapes from Nero d’Avola to Touriga, arguably provide more interesting drinks in so many local vineyards more often than so classical (mainly French) grapes.
Again, this isn’t news, but the layers of evidence just keep stacking up, and with Grenache, we have approaching two centuries of vines in the ground to support that suitability – though Grenache is just 1% of the Australian crush, so it’s life at the margins. And as the assembled crew of McLaren Vale winemakers at this tasting were at pains to remind, the old vine portion is even smaller – there are just 70 hectares of old vines in McLaren Vale, which is sweet f* all when you consider that Chateau Latour alone has 78 hectares under vine.
Still, who cares about volume, let’s celebrate a grape that we’re really good at?
As David Gleave also laments, ‘Australian wine is in deep, deep shit’ internationally, with the prevailing situation that wine professionals just aren’t comparing great Australian wines to wines of the world.
Grenache of the calibre below can change that (especially served blind).
The Grenaissance contingent was worthy for this event, too. Gleave was sharing a panel with Pete Fraser (Yangarra) and Steve Pannell (S.C. Pannell), and they’d brought a pack of McLaren Vale Grenache wines that felt less Grenaissance, and more that reinforcement of an increasingly well-established concept (ie that McLaren Vale Grenache is fantastic stuff).
What’s even better about this tasting was the honesty. No doubt helped by the ever-quotable Steve Pannell, the vibe here was less ‘look at me’ and more ‘look at these’.
In fact, the only thing missing here is photos. I took zero, not even a selfie with Pete Fraser et al (which is what you get a ozwinereview kitchen shot, rather than a tasting pic). Ball, dropped.
Luckily the wines don’t need pictures, you just need a glass…
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