How one winemaker unlocked the secret to a globally great Australian grenache.

The most profound tasting I’ve done all year took place in the McLaren Vale last week where winemaker Peter Fraser has created a grenache as good as it gets - globally.

Peter Fraser, winemaker, at Yangarra Estate

Driving almost three hours to taste 15 wines then turning around to drive back home is a particular form of madness. But when those wines tell the story of how a patch of ancient sand reveals itself, step by step, year by year, as one of the world’s great vineyards, you could walk the distance backwards in a gimp suit and it would still be worth the effort. Working through 15 vintages of Yangarra’s High Sands Grenache last week was the most profound tasting I’ve done all year. The wine comes from the most elevated part of the Yangarra estate, 1.7ha of 54-million-year-old silica that looks as if it’s been shovelled in from a beach.

It’s all grenache, planted as bush vines in 1946 by the Smart family, whose contribution to making the Blewitt Springs district of McLaren Vale one of the world’s most exciting sites for grenache cannot be understated. It’s farmed biodynamically.

At this high point, around 210m above sea level, vine roots dive up to a metre before hitting red clays, but it still feels as if their foothold is tenuous. Lean on one and you’re likely to push it over. There’s something clearly special about the interplay between these sands and these vines.

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Tasting 15 vintages is a chance to see how one man came to understand it, unlock it and evolve it. The wines from 2010 to 2014 show winemaker Peter Fraser coming to terms with the vineyard, his approach becoming more refined; 2015 is a major leap forward, the first time gentler handling and a move to larger oak for maturation really paid off with a wine of power and complexity but also with a greater transparency and finer detail. What follows are a series of exceptional wines, even in tougher vintages, as Fraser’s exceptional feel for the vineyard sees him picking a little earlier and increasingly incorporating the use of egg-shaped ceramic vessels for maturation.

Tasting through them is like observing the same image through a microscope, tightening the focus bit by bit until what you see is crystal clear. Calling High Sands one of Australia’s best wines is a mistake. Its greatness is global.

Yangarra High Sands Grenache 2021

$300 (Cellar Door Only)

Exquisitely polished and composed. Everything in alignment. Raspberry, bay leaf, blood orange and rosehip. Aromatic complexity without ever slipping into the confected realm the variety often does. Gorgeously lithe, almost balletic. ­Effortless flow across the palate. Ethereally beautiful.

14.5% alcohol, 97 points

Yangarra High Sands Grenache 2023

$300

Perfectly pitched. Minutely detailed. A wine of architecture and artistry. Sour cherry and blood orange, dried raspberry, some exotic peppers. Effortlessly assured in the mouth, fine and lithe across the palate; the granular, gravelly tannins emerge and expand through the finish. As good a grenache gets. Destined to be a legend.

13.5% alcohol, 98 points

Yangarra High Sands Grenache 2024

(Price tba NEXT YEAR)

Super expressive and effusive, likely thanks to a portion of the vineyard’s output being fermented 100% as whole bunches. Voluminous perfume, dark cherries, spiced quince, salted licorice and coriander seed. Supple and sinewy, shapely and lithe. Not yet released, but the hype is already building.

14% alcohol, 97 points