BEST GRENACHE TROPHY: 2023 NATIONAL WINE SHOW OF AUSTRALIA

The Willunga 100 2021 Smart Vineyard Clarendon Grenache has been awarded the  Grenache Trophy at the National Wine Show of Australia. The show has been a highlight on the Australian wine industry calendar since it began in 1975. As only the highest-awarded wines at qualifying Australian wine shows make it to the judging table, National Wine Show winners represent the best of the best Australian wines. This is the second time Willunga 100 has been honoured with a trophy at the National Wine Show, as in 2016 the 2015 Trott Vineyard Blewitt Springs Grenache (previously known as ‘The Hundred’ Blewitt Springs) took home the Trophy for Best Other Variety.

Winemaker Renae Hirsch and Sales and Marketing Director Penny Lamb were in Canberra on Friday 16 June to accept the trophy.

David Gleave MW, one of the founders of Willunga 100, said “we are delighted that our 2021 Smart Vineyard Clarendon Grenache has been recognised as one of the best Grenache in Australia.  We feel this recognition for a fresh and aromatic style of Grenache from a single site vindicates the focus we have put on Grenache since our first vintage in 2005, and our first single vineyard wine in 2009.”

Grenache had an immediate attraction for the founders of Willunga 100.  When David Gleave and John Ratcliffe first started scouring McLaren Vale vineyards for fruit in 2004, the growers were keen to show them their Shiraz and Cabernet vines, but dismissed queries about ‘those gnarly old vines over there’ by saying ‘nobody wants Grenache’. Willunga 100 did, and proved it by making an award winning Grenache in its first vintage, 2005.  Willunga were among the first producers to pioneer this fresher style, and to apply a Burgundian approach to Grenache in McLaren Vale.

In 2015, the first single vineyard wine from the Smart Vineyard in Clarendon was made. Planted in 1922 and tended by highly regarded Bernard Smart and his son Wayne, this dry grown bush-vine vineyard on loamy, sandy ironstone in Clarendon provides a very different profile to the fruit to other subregions of McLaren Vale. “In the Smart Vineyard the combination of soil, elevation and the cooler climate result in a wine with structure, mineral rich flavours and brooding concentration yet shows elegance, finesse, floral highlights and a velvety texture” said winemaker Renae Hirsch.

For further information or images please contact:

Penny Lamb
Sales & Marketing Director
Willunga 100
T: +61 (0)4 8894 5699
penny@willunga100.com
Website: willunga100.com
Facebook: @willunga100
Instagram: @willunga100