Schwarz Wine Co The Grower Chenin Blanc Barossa Valley 2024
- 92
- $30
- Drink by: 2025-2033
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Part of the range celebrating the growers in the Barossa who provide so much of the fruit for the region’s great wines. It is encouraging to see them also offering some less trendy varieties. Chenin Blanc has a long history in this country, but it really should garner far more attention. It is one of those grapes which has strong varietal characters which so often stand out. Expect pears and apples, but there is usually another flavour/character – some see it as an appealing cheesy touch, but for me, it comes across as a gentle hessian. This wine reveals all this. A pale straw, there are the lifted perfumes of the variety all in evidence. Bright pears, citrus, green apples, florals, a touch of lemon curd and that typical hessian. Good focus and some mouth puckering acidity, the wine has impressive length. And like most Chenins, this will age well. Expect five to eight years of pleasure ahead.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
