HEAD Wines Old Vine Grenache 2024

I am privileged to work with a number of small parcels of fruit from old, dry- grown, hand-pruned and picked vineyards from across the Barossa. In 2009, I decided to make Grenache the way Barossan families made table wines many generations ago, to honour the years of back-breaking work required for keeping the bush-vine vineyards feasible and sustainable. The use of the word ‘Old Vine’ shows respect to the Barossa Old Vine Charter which was set up to celebrate and maintain the special sites & history of the Barossa. In 2024, we were again in the middle of ‘La Nina’s’ milder conditions which meant the best Grenache sites were found in the warmer sites. A new dry-grown Grenache site (Planted 1940s) on Trial Hill (Pewsey Vale) at 480m altitude performed particularly well this season and forms the backbone of the wine. The final blend also contains a smaller amount of the Riebke vineyard of Ebenezer (Planted 1880s) at 290m altitude and ‘Stonegarden’ (Planted 1858) of Springton. 10% whole bunch ferment was used, with minimal hand plunging. Racked once during maturation of 11 months in neutral French oak puncheons. Bottled unfined & unfiltered under Stelvin capsule.