Having just tasted a dozen wines made from the fashionable Grenache grape in McLaren Vale, South Australia, I looked up what my friend James Halliday had to say about the grape in his 1990 Australian Wine Guide. (Halliday is Australia’s best-known and most experienced wine writer. Aged 82, he has only just relinquished full responsibility for the annual Halliday Wine Companion that rates virtually every wine made in the country.)
The section at the beginning lists 116 grape names. But of Grenache there is no mention, so infra dig was it considered then in Australia — fit only to supply raw material for cheap fortified wine.
But what should I find emblazoned on the smart brochure that accompanied the recent tasting? A quote from Halliday: “Grenache is McLaren Vale’s secret weapon — not merely Australia’s best, but every bit as good as that of the Rhône valley.”
For many years, Grenache was associated almost exclusively with the southern Rhône and Provence in south-east France. It is the dominant ingredient in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Côtes du Rhône and a host of other appellations in the southern Rhône valley. Naturally quite pale, Grenache is also the main ingredient in the current tidal wave of Provençal rosé. (Typical southern Rhône reds are big and beefy — spicy, deep-coloured and rich — often thanks to blending with deeper-coloured grapes such as Syrah and Mourvèdre.)
Yet almost as much Grenache has been planted in Spain — where it is called Garnacha — as in France and Spanish producers have spearheaded a new style of red wine based on the variety. Reds no longer need to be dark to be admired, opening the door for Garnacha, which is relatively transparent, but fresh and sweet, with floral aromas, often of roses — a less expensive alternative to delicate red burgundy.
This new style of wine has brought fame to the Gredos mountains west of Madrid. It is fashioned from ancient Garnacha bush vines, which can be found in many Spanish wine regions. Carefully handled, Garnacha fruit has yielded truly fine — and often underpriced — wines in Calatayud, Navarra, Cariñena and Campo de Borja. Even in Rioja, a Tempranillo stronghold, an increasing number of wines based on the also-ran Garnacha grape are being produced, particularly from old vines.
Grenache is unusually resistant to vine-trunk diseases, which explains why there are so many mature plants all over the world. It also copes well with drought.
This strength has prompted re-evaluation of the variety in South Africa, particularly in the unirrigated interior wine regions such as Swartland. There, star performers David & Nadia (the brand name of a talented married couple) have decided to give up other red-wine grapes to concentrate on the Grenache that they have seen riding out heatwaves and droughts with ease.
You might think this would make Grenache suitable for California’s many vineyards and you’d be right. As Patrick Comiskey wrote in his 2016 book American Rhône: “In the mid-1990s, as the American Rhône movement kicked into high gear, producers scoured the state for bona fide Rhône varieties already planted in California. They were somewhat surprised to learn that Grenache was everywhere around them.” The variety had rarely been identified on labels but was yoked into service instead as raw material for plonk, high yields camouflaging the grape’s intrinsic character.
Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon was one of the first to celebrate California Grenache in his Clos de Gilroy from Monterey. Today, truly individual interpretations of Grenache can be found throughout the state and especially in the Sierra Foothills and the Central Coast.
In Italy, Grenache is grown almost exclusively on Sardinia, where it is known as Cannonau. Sardinians and Spaniards vigorously dispute who grew it first, but it’s clear from Antonella Corda’s wines, for example, that the transparent new style can be found on the island.
So what about Australian Grenache? Having come late to the modern Grenache party, the Australian winemakers who now take it seriously have been able to learn from those who came before — those, for example, who experimented with small, new oak barrels for ageing and realised that Grenache much prefers large oak casks or concrete. As elsewhere, some of the grape stems are often kept in the fermentation vat to add zest.
McLaren Vale has adopted Grenache more than anywhere else in Australia, partly because it can boast so many old vines on the sort of sandy soils that suit it well.
I asked Halliday why Grenache was missing from his 1990 list. He didn’t explain but emailed fascinating evidence of the variety’s rehabilitation in Australia. This year, the average price of a tonne of Grenache grapes was A$1,209 (£660) — higher than for any other major grape.
Unfortunately, for the variety to express itself fully the wines tend to be quite high in alcohol, but two of the 12 McLaren Vale Grenaches I tasted were under 14 per cent, and very delicious too. The lowest, 13.5 per cent, was one of three Thistledown wines made by British Masters of Wine Giles Cooke and Fergal Tynan. In their quest to become “the authority on Australian Grenache”, they admit to being inspired by Spanish Garnacha.
The mystery perhaps is why the new, delicate style is so difficult to find in the grape’s French heartland, the southern Rhône.
Some delicious Grenache and Garnacha
• Paniza, Terrenal 2019 Vino de España
£6 Marks and Spencer 14.5%
• House of Dreams 2019 Swartland
£9 Marks and Spencer 13.5%
• Los Cardones, Estancia Tigerstone 2018 Salta
1,030 pesos Ozono Drinks, Buenos Aires 14%
• Frontonio, a range of Garnachas IGP Valdejalón
From £15 Winebuyers
• Bernabeleva, Navaherreros 2017 Vinos de Madrid
£15.19 Gauntleys of Nottingham, £19.99 Hay Wines, £21.99 Selfridges 14%
• Malmont 2015 Côtes du Rhône
£19 Stannary St Wine Co 13.5%
• Sierra Cantabria Garnacha 2016 Rioja
£18.85 The Great Wine Co 15%
• Verum, Ulterior Parcela No. 6 2017 Vino de la Tierra de Castilla
£19.95 The Great Wine Co 14.5%
• Carsten Migliarina 2017 Wellington
£19.95 Yapp Bros 13.5%
• David & Nadia 2019 Swartland
£120 for six bottles in bond Justerini & Brooks 13.5%
• Birichino, Besson Vineyard 2018 Central Coast
£24.50 Vinoteca, £27.95 Field & Fawcett, £28.99
Majestic, £29.50 Butler’s Wine Cellar 14%
• Ministry of Clouds 2018 McLaren Vale
£33 RRP Master of Malt, D Vine Cellars, Elicité, Eight Stony Street, The Good Wine Shop, Theatre of Wine, Red Squirrel 13.9%
• SC Pannell, Old McDonald 2017 McLaren Vale
£40 RRP Cru London, Vinum, Exel Wines, Lay & Wheeler 14.5%
• Thistledown, This Charming Man 2018 McLaren Vale and Thistledown, Sands of Time 2018 McLaren Vale
Both £44 Noble Green, Hedley Wright and, by the case, The Fine Wine Co. US importer Southern Starz 14.5%
• Whitcraft, Stolpman Vineyard 2018 Ballard Canyon
£48 The Sorting Table 13%
• Yangarra, High Sands 2017 McLaren Vale
£86 RRP UK importer Boutinot, SKr795 Systembolaget, many stockists in Australia 14%
Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com. More stockists from Wine-searcher.com.
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The Link LonkNovember 07, 2020 at 12:01PM
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The revival of the Grenache grape - Financial Times
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