Willunga 100 Smart Vineyard Grenache 2024
Grenache has a wonderfully diverse flavour profile that changes from site to site and throughout its life in the bottle. This sensitivity to a site attracted owners David Gleave MW and John Ratcliffe to McLaren Vale when they first started Willunga 100 in 2004. At the time, few people took Grenache seriously, but they saw great potential in the old bush vines of McLaren Vale, particularly from the Blewitt Springs and Clarendon sub-regions. Today, David and John's vision is to make contemporary McLaren Vale wines with a strong focus on Grenache. With Renae Hirsch as Winemaker, our wines aim to be an authentic expression from each of our unique sites.
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.
Vitello tonnato or duck confit.
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.
