Give the glory of grenache a chance

Like the ability to correctly pronounce words such as chance, an appreciation of grenache, a South Australian quirk.

This evening, while most attendees at Adelaide’s Tasting Australia festival are stalking Marco Pierre White for a selfie featuring that soul-boring stare, I’ll be sermonising on the glorious mysteries of grenache.

Considering this event is taking place in South Australia and those in attendance have paid good money to listen to luminaries such as Steve Pannell, Chester Osborn and Robert Hill-Smith on the same subject, the crowd doesn’t need to wear a cassock to let us know we’re preaching to the choir. Like unreliable energy supply and the ability to correctly pronounce words such as dance and chance, an appreciation of grenache is one of those uniquely South Australian quirks.

While there are small pockets of grenache in places such as Heathcote in Victoria, most plantings are in SA soil, and of those the greatest number are concentrated in urban Adelaide’s viticultural bookends, the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale.

The reasons are historical and sound. When the first European twigs were propagated, planted and set on the path to becoming Australian vineyards, the sunbaked similarities between Spain and southern France, where the variety thrives, and the SA regions in which it set new roots encouraged extensive planting.

For the first century or so in its new home, grenache produced mainly fortified wines, its ability to achieve high alcohol and large crop levels with relatively light colour making it ideal for the Australian tawny port style.

Those virtues became liabilities when the Australian palate shifted from sweet fortifieds to dry table wines in the mid-20th century and a lot of high-alcohol wines with simple, lollyish flavours conspired to sully the variety’s reputation.

Where it did work well was in the cuddly, accommodating wines historically, and incorrectly, labelled as burgundy that constituted a large part of the Australian red wine market through to the early 1970s. These wines were usually blended wines, and those produced in South Australia partnered grenache with the plentiful and compliant shiraz and the darker, earthier grape the French knew as mourvedre but more prosaic Australian tongues christened mataro.

Many of them were lovely wines, but you couldn’t really say they were accurate expressions of the true potential of grenache.

But as a new generation of winemakers focuses on the variety, free of the hang-ups of the past, the true greatness of Australian-grown grenache is emerging. They are blessed in the Barossa and McLaren Vale with a significant number of old grenache vineyards and these well-established vines, many witnessing their third century, are relishing their chance to shine.

The variety can handle some heat, produces better fruit when dry grown, and is a clear and articulate communicator about the nature of a particular site.

It’s vibrant and expressive, can be pretty, aromatic and red-fruit driven, but also can deliver savoury complexity and significant structure. It exhibits a lot of the qualities that get people excited about pinot noir without the daunting price tag. Yalumba’s Hill-Smith often refers to grenache as “blue-collar pinot” and whenever I’m asked what’s the best Australian pinot under $30, I always answer grenache.

Maybe those old “burgundy” wines weren’t so far off the mark after all.

TRY THIS

2011 Cirillo 1850 Vineyard Grenache $50

The Cirillo family is in possession of the oldest productive grenache vineyard on the planet, planted in 1850, and since they bought it in 1969 nobody has been allowed to prune it apart from the present custodian, Marco, and his father, Vincent. It’s a special place producing a special wine.

Like many other grenache wines from the maligned 2011 vintage, this wine emphatically points out the mistake we make in tarring an entire season with a single brush.

It is bright and aromatic, with dark raspberries and spice in abundance, and the underlying depth, complexity and intrigue that can be revealed when we let old-timers tell their stories. If this vineyard were in France you’d be paying hundreds. Wines of such significance are rarely as affordable as this.