Willunga 100 McLaren Vale Shiraz/Viognier 2021
A complex and enticing nose with florals, spice and some meaty savoury notes. The Shiraz delivers a solid core with dark plum, black cherry and loads of spice whilst the Viognier compliments this by adding a brightness to the wine. Fine grained tannins bring this wine to conclusion with a moreish savoury edge.
The Shiraz was sourced from a vineyard in the Whites Valley sub- region of McLaren Vale which is modern trellised vines planted in the mid nineties and grown on a soil formation that consists of red brown alluvial fan clays, sands and gravels.
The Shiraz was fermented on skins for seven days in open fermenters before being basket-pressed to stainless steel tanks for the remainder of primary fermentation. Once fermented to dryness, 50% of the wine was racked to third-use French oak hogsheads, the remainder to tank where it underwent malolactic fermentation and was then aged for 10 months. The Viognier was fermented separately and blended with the Shiraz prior to bottling to add fragrance and lift.
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.
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