Yangarra wins wine of the year
James Halliday, the leading authority on Australian wine, has announced that the Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2021 has been awarded Wine of the Year, Red Wine of the Year and Best Grenache at the Halliday Wine Companion Awards 2024. Based on a panel decision, the Halliday Wine Companion awarded the Old Vine Grenache 2021 99 points, reinforcing its place on the world stage alongside classic international varieties which aligns McLaren Vale with other renowned winegrowing regions of the world.
“We are so very fortunate to work with such a special site that makes a distinctive expression of Grenache,” says Winemaker Peter Fraser. “Vineyard Manager Michael Lane and I have worked with this special block for 25 years and our winemaking team’s incredible attention to detail guides this wine to its truest expression’’.
The Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2021 was produced from 1946 Blewitt Springs bush vines planted in a deep sandy dune that Yangarra call ‘The Beach’. Dry-grown and bunch sorted, the wines were made with wild yeasts, then open fermented and basket pressed.
Bright and clear, but with a deep crimson hue, the Old Vine Grenache 2021 is scented and perfumed. Its red fruit sundae glistens like dew drops on a spider’s web, yet it also has a savoury echo towards the finish.”
Other wines that also scored highly in this year’s competition were the Yangarra 2021 Roux Beauté Roussanne, the 2020 High Sands Grenache and the 2021 Shiraz – all of which scored were awarded gold medals after scoring 97 points each.
Roux Beaute Roussane 2021
97 Points
“Picked on a fruit day of the biodynamic calendar, with a portion destemmed and crushed to ceramic eggs where it remained on skins for 121 days, gleaning textural nourishment, complexity and persuasion. The rest, in an egg-sans skins. All wild fermented. Among the greatest wines of this country, irrespective of colour. Rooibos, lanolin, quince, pithy stone fruits and almond croissant. A powerful, prodigiously textural wine of depth, resonance, and profound belief.”
High Sands Grenache 2020
97 Points
“Wild fermented Extracted dutifully across a 21 day window. Foudre and eggs for 11 months thereafter. This is a wine of power reined in by sumptuous tannins, like matrix dots doused with spice and teeming across the mind’s eye. More southern Rhone than Gredos, often the inspiration in these parts. Moroccan souk. Goa trail blazing. Darker, danker fruits, clove, and assertive tannins … those gorgeous tannins, trailing the wine to prodigious length. Wow!”
Shiraz 2021
97 Points
“From the Blewitt Springs single-vineyard estate on sand and ironstone soils. It wasn’t entirely a surprise that McLaren Vale’s first-among-equals winery should have made this gorgeously succulent wine, but I couldn’t help but consulting the thesaurus to be sure ‘succulent’ covered the field. The entry reads: ‘juicy, moist, luscious, soft, tender, mouth-watering, appetising, flavoursome, tasty, delicious.’”
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