Think Langhorne Creek is all about big juicy malbecs and mint chocolate–tinged cabernets? This supple, elegant sangiovese from Sven Joschke asks you to think again.
An appealingly dusty savouriness is the first impression on the nose – think bitter cocoa powder and the smell of a freshly unwrapped cigar. Underneath this you can find notes of sour morello cherries, red currants, and sweetly ripe baby Roma tomatoes. The palate is fresh and bright, the flavours driven down the tongue by a racy sweep of acidity that fans out towards the back. It’s medium-bodied, but delicately so, with an appealingly tart cast to its fruit profile and fine but firm tannins that provide a surprising amount of grip. A lovely touch of black tea leaf bitterness frames the lengthy finish. Pair this with bresaola, if you have a bottle from this vintage – or buy a case of the current release and lay some bottles down for drinking in a few years’ time.
Langhorne Creek’s history is as long and storied as most other South Australian wine regions, with the first vines going into the ground in 1858 – but despite this, its reputation is often overshadowed by McLaren Vale and the Barossa. This is a land shaped by water – a floodplain nestled next to the eastern edge of the Adelaide Hills, formed between the Bremer and Angas rivers as they empty into the imposingly large freshwater estuary of Lake Alexandrina, and from there into the nearby Southern Ocean. Those rivers bring with them silty, highly fertile alluvial soils, as well as (in the case of the Bremer) providing plenty of water for flood irrigation of vineyards. While it’s often thought of as a warm region best suited to the production of bold, hefty reds, all of that water moderates the climate quite well. The recent ‘Project 5255’ initiative, which matches young winemakers with donated parcels of fruit from the region, is quietly changing Langhorne Creek’s narrative – stay tuned.
Sangiovese is Italy’s most important grape, by both volume and reputation, and it has travelled the world, establishing serious outposts across the New World. In Australia, sangiovese didn’t really start making inroads until the late 1980s, but with improved genetic material, it is now making quite an impression. The key flavour component mentioned when people talk about sangiovese is cherry, generally red, but sometimes black, with that primary profile generally accented with savoury notes of dried berries, hardy herbs, dried earth, leather and cedary notes.
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