Additional information
| Weight | 1.467 kg |
|---|
2024 Clarendon Hills Romas Old Vine Grenache
$150.00 / 750ml bottle
Nestled away in the upper reaches of Blewitt Springs is Clarendon Hills Romas Grenache vineyard. The ancient hillside site plays home to some of the oldest plantations in all of McLaren Vale, with the Romas vineyard planted circa 1920. Located on a steep, Eastern facing, rocky site with a 45 degree gradient and terraced rows comprised of 104 year old pre-phylloxera grenache vines. The vines are gnarly and twisted and extremely low yielding due to the vine age but also the ancient terroir beneath. The soil has been dated between 750 and 1600 million years old by the McLaren Vale Geology Survey and is riddled with coarsely pebbled silica, quartz and ironstone mixed throughout sand and loam. The site receives only cool, morning sunshine to ripen the 104 year old vines to perfection every year. The Clarendon Hills winemaking team prizes the fruit that we receive from his patch for its signature small berries and bunches with extremely thick skins that forge incredibly exotic and vivid flavours. The vines are carefully hand picked and returned to the Clarendon Hills winery located in Blewitt Springs less than a kilometre away via slow moving tractors to ensure the grapes are in mint condition upon return to the winery. The grapes are then de-stemmed and crushed and cold soaked. The must is then wild yeast fermented in stainless steel tanks and pressed to French Oak and left on less for an extended period across 18 months of careful French oak maturation. The winemakers prefer to use only highly seasoned vessels to preserve the grapes natural tannin structure and forge a style that ultimately enhances the purity and aromatics of the world class 104 year old Grenache fruit. The wine is then carefully bottled at the winery on Clarendon Hills’ proprietary bottling line for optimal results. Romas Old Vine Grenache is the highest fidelity expression of Blewitt Springs Grenache at Clarendon Hills. Its is the most complex and mineral driven and it has the finest, longest and most profound structure. The 2024 release embodies precision, power and perfume.
Specifications
RegionRegion
Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale is a sprawling hillside region 12 kms North East of McLaren Vale town centre. Famous for its deep sands and many flowing hillsides, Blewitt Springs is home to some of the oldest Old Vine Grenache plantations in the world. The Romas Grenache Vineyard was planted circa 1920. The region enjoys added comparative elevation to its surrounding McLaren Vale districts and its abundantly flowing hillside aspects have a deeper hidden secret to their prominence: a mineral rich subterranean, highly decayed layer of ironstone and quartz that impart a myriad of nuanced mineral notes to the wines produced. The 6 km proximity to the Great Southern Ocean and St Vincents Gulf also imparts a gift of Chardonnay like acidity to the reds which impart an infinite freshness to the wine style. The Romas Old Vine Grenache vineyard is a single vineyard expression from an old gnarly low yielding bush vine patch of Grenache on the rockiest and ironstone richest section of our "Blewitt Springs Vineyard". This section has a due East aspect and receives the cool morning sun and complete shade in the afternoon. It is located at 270 metres above sea level and represents Blewitt Springs’ higher altitude stony geology with less sands in this section and more highly compacted geology of coarse quartz, ironstone, shale fragments.
Conditions
Wet and humid growing conditions in 2023 persisted throughout the year and continued in to the Spring time and Summer that preceded the 2024 harvest. The warm and wet conditions encouraged the Old Vine Grenache vineyards to shoot many buds and all Grenache sites were 25% heavier than usual. Slightly heavy crops were relatively behind ripening schedule in Summer but the clearing of the wet conditions in 2024 mid January lead to fantastic ripening period cross January to March. Large healthy canopies pulled the fruit in to line and protected the bush vine berries from the hot Summer heat. Hand harvesting occurred mid March. The arriving fruit was exquisite with deep flavours and bountiful volumes. A rare combination of great yield and also exceptional quality. The 2024 growing season suited Grenache and the quality is evident in the collection of delicious 2024 wines.
Winemaking
Low yielding, dry grown vines from the Blewitt Springs region in McLaren Vale were hand-picked and followed by a 60% whole berry, 100% destemmeed, wild yeast fermentation. Gently pressed and returned to barrel for 18 monthsc in only well seasoned, high end, French Oak.
Maturation
18 months, within a hierarchy of 3-8 year old tightly grained French Oak. Bottled at the winery with no fining or filtration.
Grape Variety
100% Old Vine Grenache, single vine, old vines
Closure
DIAM
Production
4,800 bottles
Winemaker
Roman Bratasiuk
"DIAM closure is all very well, but with a plump and fresh cork, you can’t get them back into the neck of the bottle. Not a problem for most, I’ll accept, but when I need to close them up for collection by Fluffy Hair Adair, it presents something of challenge. So I pulled out my fine Japanese knife, and shaved some bits off the bottom so it fits back into the bottle. Done. As an aside, this excellent knife I have has some Japanese letters on the box I keep it in. I wondered what it said, so I ran it through Google image translate and I was very disappointed with the translation. Turns out all that fancy writing says “Kitchen knife”. Talk about prosaic! Anyway, the 104th season for the vineyard that Romas is sourced from. Aged mainly in seasoned barrels of 4-6 years old. These Clarendon Hills Grenache wine are not like many others from Blewitt Springs, they’re more powerful, less frisky, and put me in mind of Chateauneuf-du-Pape in way, stylistically more so than in actuality, of course.
Raspberry, cherry, a hoisin sauce richness, spice, mint, thyme and rose oil, toasted peanuts too. It’s a rich and throaty wine, though it’s not warm, and has a distinctly nutty juicy raspberry and sour cherry flavour, a stony grip to tannin, again that musky rosy perfume, with a ripe raspberry finish of excellent length. Wow. A distinctive and a superb expression of old vine Grenache."
96/100
Romas Old Vine Grenache 2024
- Wine Front, Gary Walsh
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