In the late 1990’s Grenache was hardly known in Western Australia, let alone in Great Southern. But, with a love of top Southern Rhône and Priorat wines, Matt Swinney had a hunch and went ahead and planted the region’s first bush-vine Grenache vineyard. He did so with massale cuttings provided by David Hohnen, giving 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.
Only selected fruit goes into both this and the Farvie Grenache—each vine was picked over three times with anything not deemed to be perfect declassified. The new release is a blend of 86% Grenache, 7% Mourvèdre and 7% Syrah, all hand-picked from dry-grown, established bush vines. The 2020 was fermented wild with 41% whole bunches. It spent two weeks on skins prior to maturation in 600-litre demi muids (there was no new wood here) before going to bottle, unfined and with minimal filtration.