2024 Koonunga Block Grenache.jpg
2024 Koonunga Block Grenache.jpg

2024 Koonunga Block Grenache

$50.00

Ian Becker’s old bush block in Koonunga is caught in time. Farmed by Ian Becker for many years, an isolated place that produces special grapes. Adrian Hoffman took over the management of the vineyard for the 2020 vintage. Yields are typically low, the 5 acre block producing less than 5 tonne, but the fruit was once again exceptional.

The Koonunga Block produces classic Barossa flavours, highly perfumed, unusually powerful for grenache, with substantive fruit weight, grip and tannin. A wine of intensity and grip that reflects the vintage year to perfection. This can be enjoyed for many years

Ian Becker’s old bush block in Koonunga is caught in time. Farmed by Ian Becker for many years, an isolated place that produces special grapes. Adrian Hoffman took over the management of the vineyard for the 2020 vintage. Yields are typically low, the 5 acre block producing less than 5 tonne, but the fruit was once again exceptional.

The Koonunga Block produces classic Barossa flavours, highly perfumed, unusually powerful for grenache, with substantive fruit weight, grip and tannin. A wine of intensity and grip that reflects the vintage year to perfection. This can be enjoyed for many years

Technical Tasting Notes

2024 KOONUNGA CREEK BLOCK GRENACHE

GROWING SEASON
The dry winter and spring made the vines work during the early part of the growing season, and bud burst started in September, three weeks earlier than the year before. Damaging frosts particularly, in September and October meant some vineyards had significant damage that influenced their subsequent yield. Veraison in many vineyards was a month earlier than 2023. Reds, with small berries, show intensity and vibrancy. An exceptional year by any standards.

TASTING NOTE
Ian Becker’s old bush block in Koonunga is caught in time. Recently brought under the Hoffmann banner with Adrian Hoffmann at the helm. An isolated place that produces special grapes year in, year out. The vineyard naturally crops low, essentially dry grown bush vines farmed as they were 100 years ago.

The wine is highly perfumed, with an intense fruit driven mouthful of red fruits, tannin, clearly powerful but with a subtlety and balance that suggests a wine that will cellar and improve for some time in the right conditions. A classic Koonunga, one of the very best!

REVIEWS

2024 Koonunga Creek Block Grenache

Steve Leszczynski (Qwinereviews.com)

95 Points - The Koonunga Creek Block stands out as one of the finest and most consistent sources of fruit for Hayes Family Wines. A lush and silky delight, this is an effortless Grenache.

A low yielding, dry grown site that is now managed by Adrian Hoffman, squishy ripe raspberries, strawberries, red cherries and red apples are bursting to impress. The shape and flow ooze appeal and that pretty red flower perfume is intoxicating. An array of fine spices curl around the mouth seemingly floating on a cloud. Although the tannins are a fraction firm on opening, they calm and release their charm with time in the glass. You won't walk away disappointed with this in your glass - until there is none left. Great stuff.

Drink to five years+

Vinous (Angus Hughson)

93 Points - Vinous (Angus Hughson)

The 2024 Grenache Koonunga delivers in spades with a generous and multi-layered opening with dark cherry, and red earth, with a pretty floral musky lift. It has impressive density with a strongly savoury feel of aged meat, earthy and rocky tones tightened up by firm tannins. The long muscular finish promises and extended drinking window.

Drinking 2027-2035

Andrew Caillard MW (The Vintage Journal)

95 Points - Medium-deep crimson. Intense plum, strawberry espresso aromas with herb aniseed notes. Supple and richly flavoured wine with intense plum strawberry pastille fruits, fine silky textures and well-integrated acidity. Expressive and flavourful.

Drink now–2032

2023 Koonunga Creek Block Grenache

WINE COMPANION (DAVE BROOKES)

95 Points - Grenache sourced from the old Becker block in Koonunga, now managed by Adrian Hoffmann, at the Barossa's northern extreme. Fragrant and lifted with pure red plum, cherry and raspberry fruits with hints of amaro herbs, cola, souk-like spice, citrus blossom, gingerbread, clove and cherry pie. Ripe, pure fruit on the palate infused with gingery spice and purple floral tones. Tannins fine and sandy and bright, with lacy acidity providing the driveline.

AARON BRASHER (therealreview.com)

91 Points - Brambly, woodsy aromas, along with cherry, raspberry, menthol and spice. Mouth-filling, mid-weighted and textured in flavour. There's a lovely, round, red fruited creaminess, that works well with the supple and gentle tannins and the snappy, punchy acidity 2025–2035

2022 Koonunga Creek Block Grenache

Huon Hooke (The Real Review)

93 Points - Medium-full red with a tint of purple and a herbal, cola, Campari, sweet cherry liqueur nose, query whole-bunch fermentation. A superb range of aromas. Full bodied and quite firm in its tannins, a powerful, emphatic wine with a lot of drive and persistence. Impressive wine, with a big future if cellared. Needs another year to fully gel but already impressive. 14 JAN 2024

WINEFRONT (GARY WALSH)

94 Points - Old bush vines. Very interesting to taste Grenache from all these different patches around the Barossa. They are all distinct and different, which is as it should be. 1350 bottles produced.

Quite some perfume and spice here, with something of a gingerbread character, cherry and poached strawberry, mint leaf too. It’s medium-bodied, blood plum, strawberry yoghourt, quite juicy and sweetly fruited, but also has a ferrous element and quiet pumice stone grip to tannin, with a sweet yet savoury finish of excellent length. Very nice. I like the almost Pinot Noir like expression of Barossa Grenache on offer here.

WINE COMPANION (DAVE BROOKES)

95 Points - Grenache sourced from the old Becker block, now managed by Adrian Hoffmann way up in the north of the Barossa at Koonunga. Jeez, this is a pretty wine. Perfumed and lifted with citrus blossom top notes above the pure red plum and cherry fruits. Hints of cola, ginger cake, clove and cherry clafoutis. It's initially quite sweetly fruited but fades to savoury on the tail, silty creek tannins and bright acidity in check; there's detail and deliciousness here, to be certain.

Decanter Magazine (Tasted by: Beth Pearce MW, Sara Muirhead MW, Ben Chan)

92 Points - Ripe strawberry, red cherry and wood spice. An elegant palate with fragrant stewed strawberry, violets, tobacco, cocoa and herbal nuances. Fresh acidity, garrigue and leather. Powdery tannins on the finish. Drinking Window: 2025 - 2028 (at Decanter tasting suite, London, 15 Oct 2024)

2021 Koonunga Creek Block Grenache

Andrew Caillard MW (The Vintage Journal)

93 Points - Medium crimson and very approachable with lifted red cherry, chinotto, plus hints of herb garden aromas. Buoyant and slinky textured on the palate with pure red cherry and raspberry fruits, attractive mid palate viscosity and fine supple tannins underpinned by crisp acidity.

Now–2026

NED GOODwin (jamessuckling.com)

93 Points - This is very good. To be a pedant, I'd like more tannin to placate the sweeter Barossan fruit, but hey, this beautifully crafted grenache demands absolute respect. Pointed aromas of mulled cherry, root spice, rose water, bergamot and clove reverberate across the juicy, full-weighted palate. The tannins that are there, nicely hewn and gently edgy, promote the cascading fruit sweetness. Long and compelling, as long as one enjoys sweet fruit flavors. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

Steve Leszczynski (Qwinereviews.com)

95 Points - Andrew Seppelt says this is the best Grenache he has ever made. Take a sip and you'll know what he means. It's sleek, refined and simply damn smashable. Go here. It's a pearler.

Classy all the way, the polish is evident and I just want it all. And perhaps I did just that. This 2021 is a blend of the Koonunga Creek North and Koongunga Creek South parcels which previously stood proud in their own right in the Hayes range. Nothing has been lost in the process mind you. If anything, more has been gained. Petals, dried roses, juicy raspberries and bright red cherries all glisten with a sly strawberry appeal sliding in late. Delicate spices add another level of interest with a moreish factor. Such a pleasurable drink, Grenache lovers are in for a treat.

Drink to five years+

2023 James Halliday Wine Companion (Dave Brookes)

94Points - Deep red purple in the glass with lifted aromas of blood plum, mulberry, black cherry and blueberry fruits cut with exotic spice, jasmine, ginger cake, earth and a hint of musk and licorice. Deep, resonant fruit profile, earth and pure with fine-ground tannin and ample acid drive on the rich, plummy finish. Lovely.

2020 Vineyard Series Koonunga Creek South Grenache

Not Yet Reviewed

2019 Vineyard Series Koonunga Creek South Grenache

2021 Wine Companion (James Halliday)

95 Points - From an old hand-tended bush block yielding less than 1t/a. Hand-picked, 20 days on skins, 9 months in used French oak. This doesn't attempt to conceal its power, the deep colour a giveaway. It carries its weight without complaint. 50 dozen made.

Q-Wine Reviews - www.qwinereviews.com (Steve Leszczynski)

95 Points - Such a pretty and fragrant Grenache. I just want to swim in it. Of the three Hayes Family Wines new Grenache releases, this catapulted me to heaven.

Attractive red flower and rose petal aromas hook your interest early.  Delicately medium bodied, Grenache is often referred to Barossa Pinot and this is a classic example of that. Raspberries and strawberries seep through its pores. Super fine spices send gentle ripples of pleasure through the mouth. 

Run to this and don't leave until every drop has been devoured.

Drink to six years+

2018 Vineyard Series Koonunga Creek Grenache

2020 Wine Companion (James Halliday)

97 Points - An old bush block farmed by Ian Booker for many years, lost in time. Only 33 dozen numbered bottles made (this one 313), it spent 20 days on skins and 9 months in used French oak. It is by some distance the most powerful and tightly structured of its siblings, and without any confection. Has the tannin structure to ensure it will live for years.

Drink by: 2038

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