Willunga 100 McLaren Vale Grenache Rosé 2024
This is a dry and refreshing style of rosé, with vibrant aromatics of ripe citrus, rose petals, strawberry and raspberry complemented by peach notes. The palate is packed with flavours of grapefruit, pomegranate and redcurrant with a hint of guava held together by a backbone of fine acidity.
This wine is a blend of Grenache fruit from younger vines providing fresh fruit aromas and flavours, combined with fruit from 50-year- old dry grown bush vines for depth, spice, and complexity. The young vineyard block of Grenache was planted from cuttings taken from the 100 year old Smart vineyard. The vines are grown in sandy soils over ironstone in the Blewitt Springs sub region of McLaren Vale and benefit from the cooling breezes flowing down from the Mount Lofty Ranges and in from the nearby coast.
Once transferred to the winery, the hand-picked grapes were gently pressed before undergoing fermentation in stainless steel tanks at cool, controlled temperatures. The wine was chilled post-fermentation and spent extended time on lees, with regular stirring to build texture and mouthfeel.
| RRP | £17.99 |
| Bottle size | 75cl |
| Vintage | 2024 |
| Alcoholic strength | 12.5% |
| Country | Australia |
| Region | South Australia |
| Subregion | McLaren Vale |
| Grapes | Grenache 100% |
| Residual sugar (g/l) | 0.2 |
| Vegetarian | Yes |
| Vegan | Yes |
| Organic | No |
| Biodynamic | No |
| Closure | Screwcap |
| Winemaker | Renae Hirsch |
Willunga 100 has focused on old-vine Grenache in McLaren Vale since its first vintage in 2005. They made their first single-vineyard wine in 2009 and have since helped pioneer a fresher, more lifted style that highlights the sensitivity of Grenache to site in the Blewitt Springs and Clarendon sub-zones.
Willunga 100 has sourced fruit since 2013 from two of the most fabled vineyards in McLaren Vale, Sue Trott’s 70-year-old site in Blewitt Springs and the Smart family’s century-old one-hectare vineyard in Clarendon. “When we started buying fruit from Sue Trott and the late Bernie Smart, nobody else wanted it. Today, there is a queue stretching all the way to Adelaide to buy grapes from these sites,” says part-owner David Gleave.
The same winemaking techniques are used for both wines. While 10% of the Trott grapes are retained as whole bunch to lend aromatics to a warmer site, the Smart grapes are destemmed but not crushed, the aim being to enhance the perfumes of this more elegant site. The rest of the winemaking is identical: about 12 days on skins in small open-top fermenters with gentle punching down and malolactic in tank, followed by ageing on lees in stainless steel for 12 months before bottling. These unoaked wines come from sites that are only 8 minutes apart by car, yet they are markedly different in style. In Clarendon, the aromatic lift comes more from the proximity to the Adelaide Hills rather than from the loamy, silty soils, while in Blewitt Springs, the Maslin sand soils act as a trigger on Grenache’s aromatics.
