Grenache is Australia’s call to arms, its cri de coeur. McLaren Vale may boast a bounty of high-quality expressions that are pallid of hue, pixelated of texture and exotic of allure, particularly from proxy grand crus Blewitt Springs and Clarendon, but Barossa has some gems, too. The finest is arguably the Alkina Grenache Polygon No. 3. I tasted the 2022 just last week.
The decision was made at this superlative address to release the 2022s, a vintage defined by lighter, more diaphanous wines, before the lauded 2021s. While both vintages were of the cooler, prolonged La Nĩna prototype, 2022 was the cooler and marked by a rain squall toward the end that marred the harvest for some. Alkina’s director and winemaker, Amelia Nolan, and “soil whisperer” Pedro Parra, however, suggest that the stringent organic work and identification of specific high-performing plots, or “polygons,” in the vineyard promoted earlier ripening, allowing the estate to salvage high-quality fruit well before the rain.
That said, this iteration is lighter and edgier than its splendid predecessor, the 2020. And yet there is a rewarding succulence to notes of fecund strawberry and dried herb, set in relief against the crunchy cadence and wash of schistous tannins, rippling from attack to a long, vibrant finish. I often compare the structure of this wine to top expressions from Priorat, such is the molten licorella energy.
Among the world’s finest grenache, this wine and its sibling, the Grenache Polygon No. 5, are worthy of a place in the cellars of both the discerning collector and swashbuckling drinker.
– Ned Goodwin MW, Senior Editor
