Fresh, vibrant and light, yet layered with intricate detail, this wine is a joyous and approachable example of the genius of the late Peter Fraser – a champion of not only grenache, but also of lesser-known climate-apt varieties.
A beautiful translucent ruby colour in the glass, with equally seductive and bright aromas of fresh raspberries, sour Morello cherries, and freshly crushed pomegranate arils, alongside a whiff of rooibos tea. It’s fresh and silky on the palate, with bright, crunchy acidity, some pleasing mid-palate weight (more than the bright fruit character would lead you to believe), and very fine, black tea–like tannins providing just the right amount of grip. There’s a sneaky depth of flavour towards the back of the palate – possibly from the dash of mourvèdre – that shows up as mulberry fruit and brambly spice notes. There’s plenty of layered flavour and nuance to be unpicked here if you care to look for it – hints of Australian bush herbs, the savoury edge of those tea-like tannins, a floral lift to the aromas – but, like its maker, this isn’t a wine that forces you to acknowledge its brilliance. Instead it’s charming, unfussy, and joyous – a beautiful everyday red from a master of grenache.
The great grape of the Southern Rhône, grenache, has also found many homes around the world, from Spain, to Italy, to California, while Australia is home to the world’s oldest productive grenache vines, planted in 1948. Today, a renaissance is seeing the grape championed, with makers in McLaren Vale arguably turning out the most compelling examples.
While it couldn’t feel any more removed from city life, the McLaren Vale wine region is inside Adelaide’s metropolitan area. And although the township itself is only 40 minutes by car from central Adelaide and vineyards brush up against ever-encroaching housing, McLaren Vale remains unaffected by the urban sprawl. With deeply etched history, the Vale has a slow-paced sense of calm and an extraordinary wealth of untrammelled beauty. It is home to some of this country’s most beautifully pristine beaches, as well as some of the world’s most forward-thinking grape-growers and winemakers. And with over 80 cellar doors, it is an essential destination for wine lovers – and anyone else, for that matter.
Most wine consumers are familiar with only a small handful of the 1300+ grape varieties currently turned into wine. These well-known varieties are often called ‘international’ varieties because, thanks to consumer demand, they’re now grown across a wide range of climatic conditions worldwide (even if they nearly all have French origins). But not all of these well-known varieties are suited to the conditions in which they’re grown – leading to resource-consuming viticultural practices (such as intensive irrigation) to successfully grow fruit, and extra interventions in the winery (such as acid additions) to turn that fruit into marketable wine. Climate-apt viticulture flips that script by starting with a match of grape variety to climate, then letting winemaking and marketing follow suit. In warm-climate regions that might mean planting obscure varieties – with names like arinto, cinsault, and tinta cao – that ripen later and retain their acidity in the heat, leading to wines that require far less work and additions in the cellar. It’s a win-win for both flavour and environmental sustainability – but the hardest part is usually getting consumers to bring home a bottle that has an unfamiliar variety on the label.
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