The Central Victorian region of Heathcote has long been renowned for sturdy expressions of shiraz, marked by firm, savory tannins. Yet it was relatively new plantings of Rhone varieties that excited me during my recent trip there, particularly grenache, which is responsible for the most exciting suite of red wines coming from Australia in decades. A fine example is the Heathcote II Grenache Heathcote 2021.
The grapes for the wine are grown on the warm, western side of Mount Camel, a central subzone of the broader Heathcote appellation. Here, decomposed volcanic basalts comprise the suntanned ochre soils, known as Cambrian. At 500 million years, they are among the world’s oldest. These soils, together with the assiduous approach of Heathcote II’s French-trained Danish winemaker, Peder Rosdal, impart a very different timbre to grenache than the edgier, more transparent iterations from McLaren Vale, in South Australia. While the best from the Vale suggest grenache from the Sierra de Gredos in Spain, with exuberant red fruits and a salty slake of tannin not dissimilar to nebbiolo, The Heathcote II grenache is more suggestive of burlier expressions from the Southern Rhone.
Rosdal said the acidity in the wine is natural, a product of strong diurnal shifts, accentuated by the cool, attenuated and brilliant 2021 vintage. Indeed, it is this acidity that compresses notes of charcuterie, tapenade, leather varnish, kirsch, smoked meat and cocoa nib into a vortex of tension, while mitigating any sense of heat from 15.5 percent alcohol. While ostensibly high, the immaculate poise of the wine attests to the fact that alcohol alone does not necessarily detract from balance if a wine’s structural tissue is in place.
Rosdal follows a sort of “what’s old is new again” approach. He uses a good percentage of whole bunches in the ferment, with the caveat that the stems are lignified – meaning brown, crunchy, sweet and fully ripe. This is a starkly different approach to many winemakers who prize the verdant tannic edge imparted by less ripe stems. Rosdal also extracts dutifully, with regular punch-downs, while championing used, relatively small-format wood, at least in the context of a variety that generally finds confluence in much larger formats and/or neutral vessels including amphorae, eggs and tulips. The result is a skein of ferrous tannic mettle, another bulwark against obvious ripeness and grenache’s penchant for excess. In all, brilliant!
