Penny’s Hill Yeenunga Grenache 2024

This is sourced from 0.88 hectares of 52 year-old bush vines planted in a horseshoe contour at 170m elevation. 30% whole bunch with 14 days on skins before maturation on lees in a combination of concrete eggs and French puncheons for eight months. 14% abv. 251 dozen made. This is exciting from the outset with  lifted cherry pit and saline minerality upon opening, followed by a wonderful warm sand earthiness that’s quickly offset by sweet pops of raspberry coulis and rhubarb. There’s some Chinese five spice and wild herbs with air that take it to another level of complexity and a poached red apple and toffee apple sweetness to cap it off. Such a complex offering. The palate is layered in its complexity and texture, with notes of wild raspberry, warm sand, red liquorice, garrigue and tea leaf gliding through the mouth before a coil of silty tannins wraps around it all. Brilliant waves of cooling acidity fan it all out through the back palate to remarkable length. This is at once intense and eminently lifted. Yet another McLaren Vale Grenache that’s putting other notable red grapes on notice.