We gathered every grenache from the Barossa (including the Eden Valley) that we could find and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines.
Our panel: Amelia Nolan, managing director and winemaker, Alkina; Tom Robertson, general manager, Alimentaria; Sophie O’Kane, head sommelier and venue manager, Julie Restaurant; Steve Kimonides, winemaker, Stelios Kimonides Wines and wine buyer, Rumi; Tais Silva Prades Villela, sommelier, Punch Lane.
Selected in their top six by Nolan, Robertson and O’Kane, this wine impressed for its delicacy and purity. Nolan noted it was “pure-fruited on the nose, with some elegant chalky tones,” led by strawberry, pomegranate, spice and a touch of dried thyme, while “crushed rock minerality and chalky tannins shape a focused finish.” Robertson found it “very delicate, light and fresh – very pure,” with anise, musk, Red Ripperz and dried florals lifted by a saline mineral pop. O’Kane saw “rose water and musky floral notes alongside sweet, pure raspberry characters,” describing it as “light and fresh – simple yet delicious… a wine for a time and place, and that time and place is in the sunshine, with some small, rich snacks.”
Chosen in the top six by Nolan and Kimonides, this wine showed both delicacy and generosity. For Nolan it carried “aromas of red fruit and herbs – Barossa garrigue?” with redcurrant, strawberry and rosehip notes, plus herbal nuance, mineral drive and “fine, chalky tannins.” Kimonides described it as “deep purple, clear and clean,” with a “heady booziness” carrying rhubarb, hibiscus and toffee apple, contrasted by a “saline salty crunch.” He found the palate “warm, with plenty of oak and fruit tannins washing across the tongue… plum and spice on the mid-palate and a long finish of cherry pip.”
Kimonides and Nolan both ranked this in their top six from the blind tasting. Kimonides described it as “seductive, sexy and alluring,” with dark plum, peppercorn, cherries, herbs and even a “designer fragrance” note. He praised the “lovely fine chalky tannin, balanced oak and wonderful fruit – fresh and bright, finishing long with a hint of almonds,” calling it “the clear standout of the day.” Nolan agreed it was distinctive, noting the deeper colour and darker fruit spectrum of plum and black cherry, but still with “a litheness… it skips rather than walks, drawing nice energy from a quality fruit source.”
Silva Prades Villela selected this wine in her top six, remarking that it “smells like the red skin of a very ripe mango – in a way that just makes me crave the fruit!” She found ripe Santa Rosa plums on the nose and Satsuma plum on the palate, returning again to that ripe mango note: “It could possibly be a little overwhelming, but in a very nice way.” She imagined it as “a wine to drink alone, or alongside appetisers while catching up with friends – just enjoying its lingering finish.”
Robertson had this firmly in his top six, describing a “harmonious nose – very lifted, driven by strong red berry fruit with lots of spice and herbs to balance.” He likened its “ethereal” layering to Burgundy, with kirsch cherry, sour raspberry and a touch of anise delivering a “wonderfully long, sappy finish.” He concluded simply: “Super wine!”
Both O’Kane and Robertson included this in their top six. O’Kane praised its “aromatic profile that highlights the fruit-forward nature – red cherries, raspberry and white pepper,” with intensity, balance and “tart red fruits like cranberries and pomegranate,” suggesting possible whole-bunch structure. Robertson described it as “somewhat old-school, yet with tactility and vibrancy,” showing dark plum, orange, spice, leather and tobacco, plus “a lovely savoury truffle note.” He called it “a serious wine that will continue to unwind in the glass, and likely need more time in bottle.”
O’Kane included this in her top six, calling it “a perfect expression of grenache for me.” She praised the nose for its “red raspberry fruits and bright, fresh acidity,” along with “markedly floral aromatics of rose petal and rose water” and a herbal lift of oregano. On the palate she noted “lovely fresh red raspberry fruit… with a line of chalky minerality zipping it all up the palate,” adding that the “beautifully silky medium body” sealed its appeal.”
Silva Prades Villela also included this wine in her top six, noting that “the colour indicates it could have some age.” She described cassis, plums, and both white and black pepper on the nose, with the palate revealing “just-ripe red berries such as redcurrant, with both white and black pepper spiciness coming to the fore.” For her it was “long finish, good balance, very mouth-filling, almost chewable – I could stay on this bottle for a long time,” suggesting a pairing with “steamed dumplings and peanut satay sauce.”
Both Kimonides and Silva Prades Villela listed this in their top six. Kimonides described “a lovely red-rose colour, clear and bright,” and an “intensely savoury bouquet of tea leaf, duck feather, barnyard, forest floor, and truffle.” He noted elevated alcohol but also “fine porcelain-like tannins” and “a long finish of coffee and cocoa.” Silva Prades Villela found it “rich and herbal on the nose, with spices markets, marinated lamb, and sage,” while the palate was “rich and unctuous… with a persistent spice character that lingers through the long finish.” For her it was a natural match with “Indian food with creaminess and lashings of aromatic spice, or a spicy Japanese tonkatsu.”
Kimonides chose this among his standouts, enchanted by its “lovely rusty red hue, brilliant and clear.” On the nose he found himself “looking for pine mushrooms in an autumnal forest,” with pine tree, needle and mushroom balanced against wild strawberries and pomegranate. He admired how “the palate is light and bright, with wonderful fruit tannin and seamlessly integrated oak – if the oak is even there at all!” For him the finish carried a “cherry Haribo lolly character,” underpinned by “a dense core of minerality that suggests the vines may have been grown on volcanic soil.”
Silva Prades Villela rated this in her top six, describing “a jammy, confected nose of richer, sweeter red fruits like plums, shot through with pepper.” She said the palate carried “Red Ripperz candy, with a rich mouthfeel balanced by good acidity that gives a nice freshness… not the longest finish, but it stays with you.” She admitted the “fruit ripeness and sweet character” attracted her, imagining it with “a dark chocolate brownie with red fruit lollies on top, or a creamy cacio e pepe dish.”
Nolan named this in her top wines of the day, noting its “appealing fruit on the nose, with fresh mineral tones.” She described a palate of “raspberry and red plum meets spice box, with a lick of orange zest,” while “silky tannins frame a lengthy finish.” She summed it up simply: “Charming wine!”
Robertson rated this highly in his top six, struck by its “lovely nose of red peppercorn, fresh herbs, anise, and baking spice intertwined with redcurrants, wild strawberries, and a savoury herbal undertone.” He saw it as “fuller and sweeter in style, almost confected – but juicy, fun and packing a punch,” concluding that it was “a masterclass in balancing complexity with simplicity all at the same time.”
O’Kane picked this as one of her top wines, noting “a well-integrated nose – the red fruits of ripe raspberry and Satsuma plum are perfectly ripe, not overbearing or askew.” She also found “pink florals of cherry blossom, almost veering into jasmine-like white floral territory,” with the palate showing “deeper and more concentrated fruit, rosemary, mint, and a lick of white pepper.” She praised its “nice feathery tannin structure, and just enough acidity to carry the wine down the palate,” calling it “such a nice drink – the tannin lends itself to food… the finish lingers, but at a lovely intensity – it’s not an unwelcome guest.”
Silva Prades Villela also included this among her top six, observing it was “lighter in colour – could indicate some age.” She picked up “red fruits such as strawberry on the nose, as well as a curious aroma reminiscent of mingled cooking smells in the kitchen.” On the palate she found “the red fruits of the nose take a tart turn – think cranberries and redcurrants – backed by vibrant acidity,” with “great balance and length… a lick of umami on the finish.” She suggested it would pair well with “olives or something salty like jamón serrano.”
Nolan named this among her top wines, finding “bright and delicious aromas of red cherry” on the nose. The palate showed “fresh raspberry and red cherries, along with peppery spice and hints of sage,” all wrapped in “a mineral tension courtesy of firm, rocky tannins.” She summed it up as “a complex, very well-balanced wine.”
Robertson’s top six included this wine, which he called “dark and brooding – a dusty old-school Barossa vibe here, with oak reigning supreme.” He highlighted “cola cherry and bitter orange on the palate,” noting that it was “super-fresh, with lively acidity to balance the darker fruit profile.” For him it was “tactile and interesting… different to the rest – and shows there is still room to make a more powerful, dark-fruited style of Barossa grenache.”
Kimonides singled this out in his top six, noting “a deep magenta, clean and bright” appearance, with “a lovely blue floral spectrum of lavender, violets, and rosehip, balanced with dark cherry and plums, all tied together with garam masala and cooking spices.” He described “grainy tannin from some serious oak treatment,” and said “the mid-palate is full and generous and the finish is long, with cherry pip and almond notes.” He concluded that “the lovely minerality in this wine indicates that the vines may have been grown in sandy soil.”
O’Kane placed this in her top picks, saying it “smells like classic grenache – all fresh raspberry, sour wild strawberry, and Bing cherry, with a lick of red liquorice and waxflower florals.” She found the palate “a little hot… indicating a higher alcohol content – but there’s a nice concentration of that red fruit character alongside a delightfully balanced interplay of tannin and acidity.” For her, it was “perfect for a more serious dinner – maybe with mum and dad and a good roast lamb.”
Silva Prades Villela rated this in her top wines, noting “a pronounced herbal nose featuring curry blend spices, turmeric, eucalyptus, tart redcurrants, and other red berries.” She said the palate carried through “the red fruits of the nose, alongside more turmeric and eucalyptus,” with “good balance, nice acidity, and a light finish.” For her, it was “an afternoon wine that doesn’t require much thinking about, but one that would also equally be at home alongside a rich and creamy chicken curry accompanied by a warm garlic naan bread.”
Nolan also highlighted this in her top six, calling it “fresh and bright with energy.” She described “bright raspberry and orange spice sitting alongside white pepper and dried herbs on the palate,” framed by “scratchy tannins and lively acidity” that gave “great energy and interest to this wine.”
Robertson included this in his top six, saying, “Pop fizzle! This jumps out of the glass with redcurrants, fresh herbs, and a lovely sour edge.” He praised its “chalky tannin” that “drives a wonderfully playful finish that keeps the seriousness on display in check.” In short, he said, “a delight to drink!”
O’Kane chose this as one of her top picks, describing it as “beautifully perfumed, with confected raspberry liquorice characters leading a bouquet of crunchy cranberry and pomegranate fruit.” On the palate she found it “all about that primary fruit, with a nice chalky minerality that marks this wine as a little different.” She noted that “chalkiness sits with tannin very nicely, making this a wine that could bridge the gap between food wines and purely drinkable wines. Just yum!”
“Kimonides selected this in his top six, remarking on its “deep cherry red colour, clear and bright.” He described the nose as “smokey tomato powder, tomato vine, baked tomato tart, and green peppercorns – all balanced with bright redcurrant and cranberry fruit.” He found the palate “balances fruit and oak tannin superbly… full and rich in the mid-palate, and finishing long, with resinous hints of pine needle and camphor.”
Grenache has had a stubborn hold on Australian vineyards since James Busby first imported it in the 1830s. Its ruggedness and adaptability to hot conditions made it ideal for the key historic zones of South Australia – McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley – and its suitability for fortified production saw it retain demand through the first half of the 20th century when table wines were shunned for the heavy stuff.
As table wines ascended and fortified sales spiralled terminally, grenache didn’t get the rebirth that shiraz did, becoming a notable victim of the Barossa’s infamous ‘vine pull scheme’ of the 1980s. Not that shiraz fared well initially, either, with both it and grenache, and the less acclaimed but important mataro/mourvèdre, all suffering the indignity of being torn from the ground by the bulldozer’s blade.
Given the kingship of shiraz now, it’s hard to imagine that it had become a liability by the 1980s – and grenache at this time was about as economically viable as a weed. With a state-wide surplus of some 10,000 tonnes in 1982, a government sponsored scheme saw hundreds of hectares of the oldest, low-yielding vineyards returned to farmland – with much eyed for development – while hundreds more were grafted to other varieties.
At the time, riesling and chardonnay were the stars of Australian wine, with the latter achieving more than double the price per tonne of grenache, while riesling was 40 per cent more valuable than shiraz. It was chardonnay, though, that accounted for much of the grafting in the Barossa, and grenache was often the host.
Thankfully, that program was arrested before all was lost, though the loss of those pioneer-planted vines and nearly 10 per cent of the region’s vineyards is still an open wound for Barossa growers. It’s no secret that Barossa chardonnay didn’t exactly take off, but the ascent of shiraz, and particularly old-vine shiraz was stratospheric in the 1990s – buoyed by an American market thirsty for powerful wines – with grenache catching enough of the tail of that comet to ensure survival.
With makers like Peter Lehmann, Turkey Flat, Rockford, Grant Burge, Charles Melton and their ilk setting to work celebrating and restoring the Barossa’s heritage, from its buildings to its traditions to its old vines, grenache was a part of their plan, albeit often in a blend with various amounts of shiraz and mataro. Those blends became a regional cornerstone, with wines such as Charlie Melton’s first ‘Nine Popes’ (a mistranslation of the French Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where grenache leads the legendary Southern Rhône blend) in 1988, and Rockford’s ‘Dry Country Grenache’ in 1989/’90 (now blended with mataro and shiraz to form ‘Moppa Springs’) becoming notable planks in the rehabilitation of grenache as a notable variety.
“The big companies were never interested in the grenache, so they let us have it.”
It’s worth noting that while the profile of Australian grenache was being raised from the 1990s on, this was not reflected in the volume of fruit harvested and wine made. Wine Australia reported that 72,000 tonnes of grenache were harvested in 1979 nationwide, while that number slumped to 15,000 tonnes in 2012, or about 21 per cent of the volume. Grenache remained on the downhill, with plantings decreasing, while the total vineyard area devoted to other grapes more than doubled. (There has since been a small uptick for grenache across Australia, with 16,055 tonnes harvested in 2025.)
For the Barossa and McLaren Vale, this not only translated to vines being removed, but also next to no grenache vines planted. The upshot is a lot less grenache, but also an unusually high average vine age across the country’s 1,500 hectares. It’s a curious upside to the decline, with many of even today’s more democratically priced wines coming from vines that are significantly old, if not ancient.
The bulk of Barossa vineyards aren’t too dissimilar in terms of plantings to McLaren Vale, with around 90 per cent red varieties in the ground. There’s a little more cabernet in McLaren Vale, a little more shiraz in Barossa, and around the same percentage of grenache. But when you look at the total area planted to grenache, Barossa edges McLaren Vale by over 100 hectares, or about 20 per cent. Barossa also lays claim to the oldest productive grenache wines in the world, planted at what is now Cirillo Estate in 1848.
Brett Hayes of Hayes Family Wines has invested heavily in grenache, making eight single-site wines from across the Barossa in the 2021 vintage. Hayes works both from his own vineyards, as well as through growers, and he notes that it wasn’t long ago that grenache was easy enough to source. “The big wineries had access to vineyards that had some grenache with loads of shiraz,” he says. “Then people came along, like me, and said I want that grenache. And the big companies were never interested in the grenache, so they let us have it.”
Before he landed the winemaking gig at Turkey Flat, in Tanunda, in 2009, Mark Bulman’s background was in cool climate regions, so his experience with grenache was limited. “We’re on the edge of where shiraz can be grown, as it’s hot here,” he says, “but I was amazed at grenache’s ability to cope with the heat, as well as how well it shows the site, how it is grown, and the clone. It’s really crystalline in how it comes through in the wine.”
“I was amazed at grenache’s ability to cope with the heat, as well as how well it shows the site, how it is grown, and the clone. It’s really crystalline in how it comes through in the wine.”
For Bulman, that grenache was generally regarded as second rate at the time was surprising given what he’d seen in their vineyards. “There was a stigma with grenache, a generation that thought grenache wasn’t good and shiraz was,” he says. “It used to be grown for fortifieds, for crop, for sugar. They generated vigour with a lot of water and fertiliser, and you get very light colour and very high alcohol. And if that’s how you’ve been doing it for 50 years, when you try and make a dry red, the results are lacklustre. But with what we’ve seen in the last ten years, that stigma shouldn’t be attached to grenache – it’s a beautiful variety, very well suited to where we are, and it makes a beautiful scope of styles, anything from rosé to a serious red and everything in between.”
That low regard was also accompanied by a lack of research into both sites and clones. “With shiraz, everyone knows where the best blocks are,” says Hayes, “but with grenache we’re only just working it all out. And those best blocks aren’t necessarily the same as the best shiraz blocks.”
“No-one cared about grenache,” agrees Bulman. “There was no money in it. Clones follow the money. People know a lot about shiraz clones. People know a lot about pinot noir clones. But because no-one’s been planting grenache, there’s been no investigation into it. Interestingly enough, you look around the Barossa and they are planting it now.”
Hayes notes there’s a general understanding that there are several clones of grenache in the Barossa. “Many of the old vines planted for fortifieds were considered big berried and high yielding,” he says. “This may have been the case, but with such a high average age – with little planted recently – old bush vines, often dry grown, yield quite low and thus it facilitates more intensity than otherwise might be possible.”
With most Barossa grenache meaningfully mature, Hayes says that vine material and subregion/soil differences are often intertwined. “Often, cuttings were taken from a neighbour and hence you can have a similar clone in a district,” he says. “Flavour-wise, I have noticed that raspberry and cherry, even plum, dominate in the north vineyards, and more strawberry and jube in the valley floor and south, though this is obviously quite simplistic.”
“From the northern material you tend to get tannin, like you do with shiraz,” he continues. “You tend to find old vines, dry grown, and tough conditions. You find that if you crop grenache a bit heavier, which tends to happen on the valley floor, you get a juicier style. The southern wines can be very pretty, which is a really nice style. If you ignore winemaking, the subregions do have an impact.”
And those old vines are now generating significant demand, with Bulman noting that when he landed in the Barossa many growers were almost giving grenache away – some of it quality old material, and some only suitable for simpler wines – but today that market has all but dried up, with a premium starting to be attached to the grape as both maker and consumer interest swells.
Massena’s Jaysen Collins says holding onto a good grenache site is important to him, and he’s prepared to pay over the market for it. “I buy grenache from someone who used to sell to a big company, at $800 a tonne for 160-year-old grenache,” he says. “I was buying it with a friend, and we were offering $1,500, and this year we were offering $3,000 or thereabouts, plus the picking costs, and he’s been selling to the old-school guys for so long that he feels guilty taking more money for it.”
“With shiraz, everyone knows where the best blocks are, but with grenache we’re only just working it all out.”
Collins points out that many Barossa growers have been burnt in the past. “they’ve seen people come in offer high prices when the market is booming then get cut right back in the downward cycle,” he says. For him, making sure the growers are profitable is a win-win situation, and it puts some value back into those venerable old grenache vines that are notoriously low yielding and inconsistent, with one season from the next varying dramatically in quantity.
In respect to winemaking, perhaps Bulman’s biggest revelation was to eschew the traditional practice of exposing the juice and wine to oxygen while making it. “You simply can’t approach grenache winemaking like you would shiraz,” he says. “Shiraz handles oxygen. It almost needs it to be the soft luscious style that people like, whereas grenache and oxygen are the worst enemies. For me, coming from a cool climate background, working with pinot noir, they’re very similar. I had techniques that I knew from working with pinot that I applied to grenache, and we got a very bright, aromatic expression of grenache.”
The old tendency to make grenache like shiraz in the Barossa, as it was also in McLaren Vale, also runs deeper than that, says Hayes. “Particularly through [Robert] Parker times, everyone wanted a shiraz-like wine. Grenache as a light wine was never going to sell in the US, so put 15 per cent shiraz in there and it will look like heavy grenache, and that’s what most people did.”
The addition of up to 15 per cent also happens to sit within wine laws in this country, with anything more than that necessitating a declaration on the label. Bulman notes that this practice was also a way of making a decent wine from a lesser site, with not all grenache sites capable of producing complete, high-quality varietal wine. A small dose of shiraz papered over those cracks, sometimes making a better wine, but not a top grenache reflecting variety and site.
Thankfully, with a growing appreciation for pure grenache, that practice has mostly changed, except in declared blends. Moving away from that more brooding style has placed more emphasis on fragrance and fine detail, while still embracing the rugged minerality of place.
Another commonality with pinot noir is the increasing use of whole-bunch ferments, which Collins has increasingly moved towards, with 100 per cent now the norm for him. That’s very much site and vine/clone dependent, though, with Hayes noting that he’d be lucky to get ripe enough stems one year out of every five.
“Our highest cropping grenache vineyard is a tonne to the acre, most are at 500–600 kilos per acre, and we still can’t get ripe stems,” says Hayes. “And that’s in a decent year. We were at 100 kilos per acre in 2020. In some vineyards they do get nice ripe stems, but in ours we don’t.”
Few wine projects exemplify the fundamental shift in thinking about grenache in the Barossa than Alkina’s Polygon Project: an ambitious collaboration between the winery, Chilean soil scientist Dr. Pedro Parra, and Italian consultant winemaker Alberto Antonini. Via a detailed process of soil analysis – first electromagnetic mapping to find the invisible boundaries between different subsoil and bedrock regions, followed by the digging of soil pits for Parra to study – Alkina has identified nine ‘polygons’ of different soil profiles within its three-hectare Old Quarter block (planted to grenache, shiraz, and mataro), with further polygons currently being identified across the broader estate vineyard. The fruit from these polygons is picked separately, fermented separately in the winery, and (for selected polygons) bottled separately in order to showcase the influence that each polygon’s soil profile has on the finished wine.
It’s a logistically challenging task. “There’s pink tape all around the vineyard marking out GPS co-ordinates,” Alkina’s winemaker and managing director, Amelia Nolan says. “We’re asking the team to pick within these areas, which in some cases means taking three vines, jumping the row, picking the next three, all while moving up a hill – which is not very easy.” For Nolan, the reward of this difficult work is a deeper understanding of the relationship between soil profile and the finished wines: “We’ve got a 1.3 hectare block of old-vine grenache, and within that we’ve got a 0.27 hectare patch of limestone, which we’ve been picking separately as ‘polygon three’ since 2018,” she says. “If we picked that whole block together, we would never see the finesse, the chalky tannins, and the elegance of that limestone – because clay will always overpower.” While not all of Alkina’s polygons are released as individual wines, keeping these polygons separate at harvest time and in the winery allows for a more precise approach to blending Alkina’s non-polygon wines according to soil type – using grenache grown on clay to add power and richness if a wine needs it, for example.
The focus on the soil here leads through to a regenerative philosophy that prioritises soil health, with a corresponding increase in water retention – an important factor in the dry Barossa, not to mention an era of climatic uncertainty. “We’re certified organic and biodynamic, but actually it goes a bit further than that. That’s what you have to do – but beyond that, I think we are very focused on soil health,” Nolan says. “Grenache will always perform better in the winery if you’ve managed it really effectively in the vineyard. So the first thing would be to make sure the vines – whether they’re old or young – are truly plugged into the soils, and connected to microbial life – fungi, good bacteria, et cetera – in the soil. Because that’s how they get all the interesting food – not just drink irrigation water from the topsoil.”
“Grenache will always perform better in the winery if you’ve managed it really effectively in the vineyard. So the first thing would be to make sure the vines are truly plugged into the soils, and connected to microbial life.”
Having built healthy soils for her grenache to grow in, Nolan and her vineyard team then focus on reining in the natural exuberance of the variety. “During the growing season we will bunch-thin at least once, and usually twice, to make sure that we’re keeping that crop load down,” she says. “If you grow too much grenache, the obvious thing happens – the sugar ripeness happens very quickly, but you’re not going to get flavour ripeness. So you going to get sweet fruit with green characters – and that makes a ‘sweet-and-sour’ wine that looks light and bright, but actually it doesn’t taste complete. It adds a jarring character.” She adds that the alternative of leaving overcropped grenache on the vine to ripen further is worse than harvesting without flavour ripeness, as the sugars will continue to develop, leading to boozy, jammy wines with little natural acidity. Rather, she says, “If you can keep your crop load at the right level, you will obviously be more likely to get sugar and physiological ripeness at the same time – which is what you want.”
Today, Barossa grenache is undoubtedly an exciting category, with a rich resource of significantly old vine material and an ever-increasing understanding of both the best sites and clones. That is coupled with a renewed approach to making, which shows appreciation for grenache’s natural character, rather than being seen as a poor cousin to shiraz. And that natural character is seeing an incredible diversity of expressions, from the pretty and the fragrant to the mineral and brooding, and everything in between.
“There’s no one correct style. Grenache offers us diversity, and we should embrace that.”
“There’s a misconception that grenache isn’t a tannic variety,” says Bulman. “That’s just the clones we mostly grow here. It can be a very tannic variety, when grown with the right clone in the right place. If you look to the Old World, like Gigondas or Priorat, the tannin is almost like nebbiolo. But that’s just another version of grenache. There’s no one correct style. Grenache offers us diversity, and we should embrace that.”
Our panel: Amelia Nolan, managing director and winemaker, Alkina; Tom Robertson, general manager, Alimentaria; Sophie O’Kane, head sommelier and venue manager, Julie Restaurant; Steve Kimonides, winemaker, Stelios Kimonides Wines and wine buyer, Rumi; Tais Silva Prades Villela, sommelier, Punch Lane.
Robertson commenced the discussion by observing that the wines on show on the day were significantly lighter and fresher than Barossa grenaches have been in the past. “Gone are the days of yesteryear where winemakers would be throwing shiraz skins into grenache ferments, picking it at 16% potential alcohol, and plunging for thirty days,” he said. “That’s the changing of the guard. I think if you did this even five years ago, half the table would have been significantly darker coloured wines – let alone richer and darker-fruited, more brooding wines. The pendulum’s swung – we are now in this new wave of Barossa grenache.”
While he welcomed this change in general, he did worry that there was a stylistic sameness on display throughout the lineup. “It was very ‘tutti-frutti’, for a lack of a better word to use,” he said. “They were really young and fresh – and that’s a fantastic use for grenache – but the line-up was a little same-same in some spots. It’s not a terrible thing – but everybody’s falling into one camp for the moment – we’re missing a few of those classic styles now.” He added that this move to freshness and lightness might be obscuring differences in terroir in the wines on show: “I didn’t really feel those distinctions when tasting – like, ‘Oh, that’s probably Eden Valley’, or ‘Oh, that’s probably sandy soils from Vine Vale.’ It was hard for me to pick out if there was much regional diversity, because there was a lot of stylistic similarity.”
O’Kane noted that while in general extraction and alcohol may have been dialled back from past levels, many of the wines still used new oak – sometimes to their detriment. “There were some examples where the influence of oak could just hit you in the face – it actually kind of masked the prettiness of the variety, compared to some of the other examples where oak wasn’t as prevalent. So it’s very marked – all I could get from those wines was oak influence overpowering everything else.”
“In a hot, warm, dry, climate, with a lot of sunshine, whole bunch brings incredible freshness. It’s a critical tool for us, and it’s easy to do unless you’re big – and then it’s very difficult to do. So you won’t see it in a commercial winery.”
Kimonides agreed, but argued that grenache needs a certain amount of oak to shine. “I might be wrong, but I reckon I only came across one that was definitely unoaked,” he said. “It might have been, by itself, fresh and lovely, but alongside the other wines I felt like that was out of balance as well. So I think the use of oak is really important to the final product for grenache.” He also noted that the use of whole bunches in fermentation could be another source of tannin and structure for grenache – and that one of the hallmarks of this shift to a new wave of Barossa grenache might be a shift from getting tannin from oak to getting tannin from stems. “If we went back eighteen years and had a look at what this sort of lineup might have looked like, you wouldn’t have seen much whole-bunch. Today we’re seeing whole-bunch, or a good percentage of whole-bunch, being used, and I think I leant towards those … I think it’s nice.”
Nolan went beyond Kimonides’s enthusiasm for whole-bunch, arguing that “it’s an essential tool” for making Barossa grenache well. “I think that in a hot, warm, dry, climate, with a lot of sunshine, whole bunch brings incredible freshness. It’s a critical tool for us, and it’s easy to do unless you’re big – and then it’s very difficult to do. So you won’t see it in a commercial winery, because they can’t manage the potential oxygen pockets within large tanks, which can cause volatile acidity. All the wines that I liked, I’m sure, had an element of whole bunch. It’s the most important tool I work with for grenache in the Barossa.”
She added that winemakers who either didn’t want to or couldn’t use whole-bunch fermentation to add the “perception of freshness and acidity that stems give” to their wines were likely to have brightened them by adding extra acid. “It was very clear which wines had that acidification,” she said. “It’s different to whole-bunch vibrancy, and it’s different to natural acid – but over-acidification on over-sweet or overripe fruit is very obvious … it’s clunky and it’s a bit chemical-y.” For her, the best approach to making grenache is to first nail the viticulture, then make the wine relatively simply: “You pick it, and it’s ripe in flavour and in sugar – then you can make a good wine without having to mess with it. That’s all there is to it. It’s like pinot – you can’t fix it if the fruit’s bad.”
This comparison with pinot lead Silva Prades Villela to observe that other parallels between grenache and pinot could be used to help sell Barossa grenache in a restaurant setting. “When I try to make people approach different wines in the restaurant, I have to use what they know,” she said. “Using pinot, for me, is a great way to introduce grenache. Pinot is a delicious grape – but you can also very easily notice when it has been too ‘touched’, as opposed to when it is smooth and beautiful.” She added: “I like to say to customers, ‘Yeah, if you like a pinot and you want to try something else, explore a different genre, let’s go to a grenache’. Because you can have the higher-ABV ones, you can have the lighter ones, you can have the fruity ones, that tartness of fruit – it’s just about finding the correct wine.”
Nolan concluded by noting that, while the tasting revealed that the region still needs to somewhat dial in its grenache winemaking and viticulture, the positive evolution of Barossa grenache was clearly on display. “We’ve stopped making it like shiraz – although shiraz should be handled gently as well, but that’s another discussion,” she said. “I think we’ve realised that we have to make grenache for what it is, as opposed to trying to make it like shiraz, which is a great step. And I think we’re seeing lovely wines as a result.”
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