Woodvale MCD Grenache 2021
- 93
- $30
- Drink by: 2022-2030
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‘MCD’ does not stand for some curious new experimental blend but rather, Kevin’s maternal grandfather, Maurice Charlie Duke. Grenache was his favourite variety and he was certainly not alone with that. The team acknowledge how the tragedy of the 1980s vine pull scheme robbed the Clare Valley (and elsewhere) of much of those wonderful old vine Grenache vineyards, but, for this wine, they have sourced fruit from two of those remaining. The fruit was handpicked, sorted and crushed into small open-topped fermenters with gentle pumpovers and then a few days, post ferment, on skins. Basket pressing followed, to a mix of older (six to ten years) French oak hogsheads. This is bright crimson in colour. A ripe and yet refreshing style, red fruits everywhere with a pleasing exuberance to the wine with raspberries, woodsmoke and mulberries in spades. Seamless in structure, there is excellent length here and very fine tannins, a mix of the silky and sandy. Delicious now and should remain so over the next five to eight years. A precise, finely crafted and good value example of Clare Grenache.
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.
