2024 The Smart Vineyard Clarendon Grenache

TASTING NOTE

Lifted aromatics of cranberry and red cherry fruit, rose petals, orange peel, bay leaves and dried herbs, cardamom spice and background hints of pepper.
Palate is tightly wound and has a line of fresh acidity, fresh cherries, and red berries, herby bouquet garnet characters along with a savoury mineral line that runs through the palate and gives the wine a lovely persistence of flavour.  Is a delicate wine, with fine but present tannins.

VINTAGE

The season started with a dry winter and start to spring- warm days and quite cool nights meant a slow start to shoot growth, and smaller crops in some early flowering varieties, but in mid-November the weather pattern changed to give us a lot of rain and some humidity, which helped with shoot growth and to improve crop levels, but was challenging in the vineyards to keep disease under control.  In early January the rain stopped thankfully, and we had dry conditions right the way through harvest, so disease was much less of an issue than it could have been.  A few short heat waves provided some challengesA single vineyard grenache sourced from Wayne Smart’s vineyard in Clarendon, McLaren Vale. The dry grown bush vines were planted in 1922 on loamy soils over red-brown clay and bedrock. Vineyard is situated at 230m above sea level on a South-East facing slope.

WINEMAKING

Fruit was hand harvested, de-stemmed and whole berry sorted into stainless steel open fermenters. The whole berry ferment spent 13 days on skins, during which time it was gently plunged to ensure optimum extraction whilst maintaining the delicate aromatics. Wine was basket pressed off skins before maturation and malolactic fermentation on lees majority in stainless steel (82%) and the remainder (18%) in an older puncheon. 

Vegan friendly.

FOOD PAIRING

Vitello tonnato or duck confit.

WINEMAKER

Renae Hirsch

REVIEWS

2024 VINTAGE

96 Points GOLD
Halliday Wine Companion, Marcus Ellis

"From the legendary Clarendon vineyard. Destemmed, 13 days on skins, matured in steel (82%) and an older puncheon (18%). The relatively pale hue presages a classic Smart vineyard wine of refined delicacy, savoury import, fine, sandy tannin and a resolute seam of acidity. The latter will knit into the wine more with time, as the balance is there, as is the fruit. Dried cherry, tart cranberry, dehydrated orange peel, sumac, cinnamon, some dusty whole white pepper notes. As said, this needs time to unlock, but it’s a wine speaking lucidly of site. Renae Hirsch’s quietly thoughtful winemaking will assuredly shepherd this into something special, and likely the score could tick up."

2023 VINTAGE

95 Points GOLD
Halliday Wine Companion, Marcus Ellis

"This was fermented, beginning as whole berries, then plunged over about 10 days and mostly matured in tank. The expressiveness of site and vintage is evident even at this early-bottled stage, if perhaps a tad shy presently. This is the palest and prettiest of the single-vineyard trio, with wild raspberry, redcurrant, sour cherry, cranberry, a hint of rose and dried orange peel, the feel engagingly savoury and refined, cinched by fine, skinsy tannins, chewy, sandy and pithy. This expands beautifully with air and promises to be singing on release."

96 Points 
The Australian, Nick Ryan

"Planted in 1922 on red clay loams over shale and ironstone. Darker fruit profile, but without density. Assured, poised and intricately structured. Dark cherry, rubbed rosemary, a seam of spice. It’s a beautiful framework, with the temptation to over-decorate through winemaking resisted."

95 Points 
The Wine Front, Gary Walsh

"1922 plantings here.Blackberry, red fruit, some liquorice, exotic spice, Earl Grey tea, dried rose, smells a bit stony too. Medium-bodied, dark red berries, dense tight tannin, quite stony and ‘minerally’ in feel, juicy orange and cranberry acidity, ferrous and long to finish. Very good. Expressive and kind of fine-boned in a way, and comes over more than a little like Nebbiolo. Give it a year or two more in bottle, I’d say."

95 Points 
The Real Review, Huon Hooke

"Medium-deep red-purple colour with a bouquet that embraces peppermint, eucalyptus, raspberry and blackberry. In the mouth, it is big and strongly constituted, with a deep core of sweet raspberry/black cherry fruit underscored by freshening acidity and supple, ripely rounded tannins. Powerful wine with deep-set flavour and focused, emphatic tannins that persist long on the aftertaste. A very impressive young grenache that treads a fine line between sweet/ripe opulence and stern, tightly coiled structure. The finish is savoury, dry, authoritative: a serious grenache indeed."

2022 VINTAGE

Gold Medal - 95 Points
2023 Melbourne Royal Wine Awards

94 Points
The Real Review - Huon Hooke

"Brilliant, electric purple colour; the aromas leap from the glass with pepper, clove and other fragrant spices amongst the dark-fruit aromas. The wine is medium-full bodied and well endowed with cleansing tannins and deep flavour. A superb Grenache that drinks well now and will richly reward keeping."

92 Points
Halliday Wine Companion, Ned Goodwin

“The highest, coolest and arguably the most famous site for grenache in the Vale. Old, dry-grown bush vines. Thirst-slaking tannins bridge the attack and a chewy, ferrous finish, the framework in which blood plum, bergamot, kirsch, dried thyme and lilac carouse. I'd like a bit more stuffing to this; more mid-palate density. Yet there is plenty of energy suffused with nourishing tannins and drinkability in spades. Lots to like.”

The Financial Review - Max Allen

"The 2021 vintage of this wine (out now) is very good (after all, it took out the trophy for best grenache at this year’s National Wine Show in Canberra), but I think the 2022 (out soon) is even better: where the ’21 is all open-textured, earthy and dusty-herbal, with powdery tannins (reflecting the loamier soils and more exposed nature of the Smart vineyard), the ’22 has purer, more focused red berry fruit intensity, and finer, tighter, more structured tannins."