In the late 1990s Grenache was hardly known in Western Australia, let alone in the Great Southern. But, with a love of top Southern Rhône and Priorat wines, Matt Swinney had a hunch and planted the region’s first bush-vine Grenache vineyard. He did so with massale cuttings provided by David Hohnen, and gave his new vines pride of place on the site’s ironstone hilltops. As it turns out, Swinney was onto something. Today these bush vines produce two remarkable and completely original wines, with a quality that can be traced directly to the unique site and Swinney’s farming philosophy.
The 2021 fruit was hand-picked from the well-established, dry-grown bush vines on the Wilsons Pool vineyard’s rich gravel/loam soils. Each vine was passed over three times, with anything deemed imperfect declassified. The new release is a blend of 90% Grenache, seven per cent Mourvèdre and three per cent Syrah. Fermentation was wild, with 25% whole bunches. The fruit spent two weeks on skins before pressing and then matured in large-format oak (there was no new wood here) for 11 months. It was bottled unfined and with minimal filtration.
Over the past few years, not many Australian wines have been dissected and discussed with more excitement than Swinneys’ two game-changing Grenache bottlings. The 2021 release leads with red fruit purity and a ripple of wild herbs and spice, draped over the finest frame of ‘Swinney tannin’—the refinement of which has drawn more than one comparison to Nebbiolo. While it is finely structured (and will age beautifully), the overall balance, the waves of fruit purity and the savoury complexity mean this will delight from the get-go. Yes, comparisons can be odious, but it was hard not to reflect on the great wines of Priorat and the southern Rhône when tasting this year’s release. It is that good.