McLAREN VALE AT A GLANCE
Climate Mediterranean Mean January temperature 20.6°C-21.5°C
Growing season rainfall 180mm-200mm
Heat- degree days 1,910 Wineries 180
(90 with cellar doors) Grape growers 560 Area under vine* 7,350.45ha
Crush* 36,492 tonnes (average 2014-2018)
Top five varieties* Shiraz 4,155ha (56.5%); Cabernet Sauvignon 1,361ha ( 18.5%); Grenache 455.28ha (6.2%); Chardonnay 283.10ha (3.85%); Merlot 188.50ha (2.5%)
Top five Iberian/Italian varieties (each under 1% of plantings)* Tempranillo 62ha Sangiovese 42.5ha Fiano 24.15ha
Nero d’Avola 20.4ha Touriga Nacional 18.4ha Montepulciano 18.12ha
proportion of McLaren Vale’s wine grapes come from vineyards registered as sustainable (a new body, Sustainable Winegrowing Australia, was set up in July 2019).
Since 2009, the annual Districts of McLaren Vale Tasting – a region-wide initiative – has explored the impact of McLaren Vale’s cocktail of geologies. This blind tasting assesses singleblock Shiraz wines from 19 hypothetical subdistricts. Each is defined by geological units ranging between 15,000 years to more than 550 million years old, which influence soil type, structure and topography.
How much do climatic factors trump geology? Toby Bekkers says the jury is out about the extent to which elevated sites (from 50m to 300m or higher) or those further inland produce later-ripening, lighter-framed, more fragrant wines.
Osborn finds that the Beautiful View subdistrict’s limestone sub-soils (34-56 million years old) produce narrow, blocky tannins, while younger, more nutritious sandstone sub-soils (2.4 million years old) impart more earthiness and a range of tannins, from fine to chunky. Red-brown loam topsoil makes for bloodiness and grey loam topsoil, earthiness in the reds, Osborn says.
Further north and inland you get to the Blewitt Springs sub-district; it’s cooler and elevated with elements of a continental climate. Osborn says its sandstone subsoil and deep sand topsoil produce perfumed wines, while the clay subsoil with sand topsoil puts the accent on fruit and floral notes.
The new face of Grenache
Blewitt Springs leads the charge on perfumed, spicy, red-fruited Grenache (so-called ‘warmclimate Pinot Noir’ styles). It is one of the decade’s most exciting developments.
Grenache is picky about where it is planted – the region’s surviving old bush vines flourish there and in other cooler locations, including Clarendon, Beautiful View and Kangarilla.
Thistledown Wines makes several examples, including two from Blewitt Springs. In 2019, The Vagabond Old Vine Grenache 2018 took top honours at the McLaren Vale Wine Show, and the Sands of Time Grenache 2018 won the James Halliday Grenache Challenge.
Exemplifying the turnaround from past confected Grenache styles, gentle techniques – including whole-bunch and whole-berry ferments, as well as old oak puncheons and concrete eggs – ‘impart rapier-like precision and purity, retaining all the unique elements we find in our remarkable old plots’, says Thistledown’s Giles Cooke MW.
For Yangarra Estate’s Peter Fraser, whose High Sands cuvée is one of the region’s most
Giles Cooke MW, Thistledown
well-known examples: ‘Grenache is establishing itself among the classics, becoming more important, and premium, because of its scarcity.’
Emerging varieties
Although Wirra Wirra’s polished Cabernet Sauvignon blends and Kay Brothers and SC Pannell’s (neighbouring) nuanced singlevineyard examples impress, I suspect McLaren Vale’s other top five varieties will diminish in importance –foremost among them being Chardonnay, a prime target for regrafting to emerging varieties that are better adapted to the warm, dry climate.
Southern Italy’s Fiano, Vermentino and
Nero d’Avola and Iberia’s Tempranillo and Touriga Nacional have the potential to graduate from ‘cool cats’ to classics.
Chardonnay lover Andre Bondar (Bondar Wines) had no plans to make a white in McLaren Vale, but Fiano changed his mind, ‘because we could achieve natural balance and freshness, whether you work with phenolics or not’. Or indeed oak, making it a versatile variety.
Southern France’s Roussanne and Picpoul are also grapes to watch. As is the resurgence of Mataro (Mourvèdre in France, Monastrell in Spain). With Bondar describing it as ‘prettier and lighter, more like a Monastrell,’ his
Mataro – like many new-wave reds – deviates from the richer, riper traditional styles of old.
Such prettier, lighter, new-wave reds and refreshing whites capture the sentiment of a younger generation ‘who got tired of catching fish and only having a heavy Shiraz to drink with it’, explains Wright. ‘We wanted to create some more light and shade in the vineyard and in our wines.’
McLaren Vale’s diverse wine scene now certainly offers that.
Dwww. thewinedetective.co.uk