Henschke Hill of Grace 2022

At the outset, I’ll confess that I have not scored this vintage of Hill of Grace quite as highly as I have many of the recent releases (in fairness, we are talking wafer-thin margins at the very highest levels). That is not because I think it is any less of a wine, quite the contrary, but because at the moment I think it is so tight, coiled and reticent that it simply will not give of itself what it can and what it will. In ten or twenty or even thirty years, I have not the least doubt that it will sit comfortably with any recent release, even the glorious 2021 vintage. The wine is, of course, from that famous patch of ancient vines in the Hill of Grace vineyard in the Eden Valley which was planted around 1860. Maturation is in older French oak hogsheads for twenty months. It is, as ever, an astonishing achievement. A purple/maroon hue with a hint of the haze of the Blue Mountains. The nose offers notes of black fruits, chocolate, florals, smoked meats, cloves, licorice, black olives, mocha and coffee beans. A wine that is generous, still obviously very youthful, and with serious concentration. On the palate, we see the emergence of notes of blueberries and the herb garden nature of the wine. There is immaculate balance and extraordinary length through to firm, very fine tannins on a lingering finish. The wine is perhaps marginally more savoury than it appears in some years. There is good energy here and underlying power which suggests that leaving the wine alone for the next five to eight years would be in everyone’s interests, before drinking it over the following thirty to fifty, if you think you’ll be around that long.