2022 Reserve Grenache
($68.00 Wine Club price)
(6 Bottle Limit)
Ian Becker’s old bush block in Koonunga is caught in time. Recently brought under the Hoffmann DV 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.
Sometimes, a barrel and the grapes marry perfectly, and that is what we saw in 2022. A barrique, 225 litres of grenache and a third use french barrel from one of our most preferred coopers. The result, our first Reserve Grenache.
The wine is highly perfumed, with an intense fruit driven mouthful of red fruits, tannin, clearly powerful but with a subtlety and balance that belies its light colour. A great grenache now, even better in a few years.
Technical Tasting Notes
2022 Reserve Grenache
GROWING SEASON
The 2022 Barossa Valley vintage will be remembered as the second almost faultless season in a row after an equally impressive although different 2021vintage. Both Vintages were cool, the coolest since 2002. Good spring rains meant that we entered the growing season with good soil moisture levels. A warm dry growing season followed, with balanced and healthy canopies producing an average crop of extremely high quality fruit.
A pigeon pair, perhaps the best two since 1990/1991 if not longer. The goodnews is that flavours and colours (in reds) and the vibrancy and lift in thewhites are incredible. Overall quality is exceptional. Another extremely goodBarossa vintage in the making.
TASTING NOTE
Ian Becker’s old bush block in Koonunga is caught in time. Recently broughtunder the Hoffmann DV banner with Adrian Hoffmann at the helm. Anisolated place that produces special grapes year in, year out. The vineyardnaturally crops low, essentially dry grown bush vines farmed as they were100 years ago.
Sometimes, a barrel and the grapes marry perfectly, and that is what we sawin 2022. A barrique, 225 litres of grenache and a third use french barrel fromone of our most preferred coopers. The result, our first Reserve Grenache.
The wine is highly perfumed, with an intense fruit driven mouthful of redfruits, tannin, clearly powerful but with a subtlety and balance that belies itslight colour. A great grenache now, even better in a few years.
Region/Sub Region: 100% Barossa Valley / Koonunga
Grape Variety: 100% Grenache
Alcohol: 14.7%
Production: 260 bottles
Cellaring: 10+ years
Winemaker : Andrew Seppelt
Download Technical Tasting Notes 2022 Reserve Grenache →
Download Technical Tasting Notes 2021 Reserve Shiraz →
Download Technical Tasting Notes 2019 Reserve Shiraz →
Download Technical Tasting Notes 2019 Reserve Cabernet →
Reviews
2022 Reserve GRENACHE
Vinous (Angus Hughson)
95 Points - The 2022 Grenache Reserve is a rare, single vineyard Barossa Grenache, with only 300 bottles produced. Superb composure marks it from start to finish, although it remains embryonic and tightly wound. The wine radiates with a deep-set core of perfectly ripened dark cherry, new leather and brooding dark earthy fruits. The structure is equally impressive, with dense tannins and vibrant acidity providing a long, sustained finish, accentuated by ham bone and smoky complexity. A fantastic overall package that promises plenty with time.
Drinnking 2027-2035
2021 Reserve Shiraz
Not Yet Reviewed
2019 Reserve Shiraz
2023 James Halliday Wine Companion (Dave Brookes)
94 Points - The shiraz hails from Block 9 on the estate's Hillside Block in Stone Well. Certified organic fruit and made by Andrew Seppelt. Pretty fruit aromas of blackberry and satsuma plum are lifted by hints of violets, oak spice, dark chocolate, boysenberry pastries, earth and a whiff of oats. There's a lovely fruit flow to the wine, drawn into line by fine, ripe tannin and bright acidity, finishing long, elegant and pure of fruit.
2019 Reserve Cabernet
2023 James Halliday Wine Companion (Dave Brookes)
94 Points - From a patch of old vines on V&A Lane in Coonawarra. Made by Andrew Seppelt, just 300 bottles. Classic aromas of blackberry, cassis and blackcurrant with classy, cedary oak, dark spice, some lovely floral high tones and an understory of light briar and herbal notes. Medium bodied, with a taut canvas of ripe black fruits, tight, robust tannins and impressive persistence, it seems set for excellent cellaring potential.
2018 Reserve Cabernet
James Halliday (theaustralian.com.au)
96 Points - Bottle 1 of 300. A single barrique doesn’t always work, but this does - and extremely well. The colour, the pristine black and redcurrent fruit, the tannins and the oak are harmonious and perfectly balanced on the medium to full-bodied palate. You have to make an early call on the oak, with limited options to fine tune. 14.4% alc, screwcap
Drink to 2040
Tyson Stelzer (thewinecompanion.com)
94 Points - From old vines on V&A Lane. 300 bottles. A firm, structured cabernet for the long game. Shut up like a trap right now, it leads with firm, fine French oak tannin. Classy oak, albeit difficult to see past it now. Glimpses of blackcurrant fruit occasionally coming up for air. The integrity of the finish confirms its potential, holding medium to good persistence and balance of acidity and fruit, even if those tannins impose for now. All it needs is time – and a lot of it.
Ralph Kyte-Powell (realreview.com)
96 Points - Good depth of colour here, and it has a concentrated, complete nose of black fruits, black chocolate, black olives, oddly serendipitous with its black label. An appropriate level of lightly camphory oak input works well, and the medium to full-palate is densely packed with intense flavours of dark berries, cassis, dark chocolate and slightly raw oak. This is a real pup of a wine and it will develop more refinement and complexity with time in bottle. It's a classic in the making, and while it's something to marvel at right now, you'll have to be patient to see it at its best.
Drink 2024 to 2041
2016 Reserve Shiraz
Huon Hooke (realreview.com)
96 Points - Deep, dense, concentrated red/purple colour with a slightly shy nose which hints at smoky char oak and black fruits. The palate is very fruit-sweet, almost luscious, almost as though there's residual sugar, a massive fruit-bomb, but it also has formidable tannin and structure to keep the balance. A massive, beamy style of shiraz, and very good in its way, if not my personal favourite. It is bordering on syrupy, but there's just enough tannin to keep it in check. A very impressive, spotlight-hogging style of wine. (300 bottles) 30/3/2018
Drink 2020 to 2038
2019 Wine Companion (Campbell Mattinson)
96 Points - Grown on a small section of vineyard at Ebenezer. It spent 20 months in a single French barrique. 300 bottles only. It not only has depth it has spread. We're looking at boysenberry and blackberry, plum and toast, with wood smoke and clove characters wafting through. It's both pretty and profound, but the way both tannin and flavour unfurl through the back half of the wine is the real cause for excitement.
Drink by: 2040
