The Weekly Review

Samuels Gorge: Grenache is back in favour at McLaren Vale.

For me, the onset of cold weather and short afternoons means one thing: slow food. Slow-cooked, rustic meals using few ingredients that spend hours in a single pot to develop rich flavours are my idea of heaven.

And there are clearly plenty of like-minded people out there judging by the popularity of slow cookers these days.

Just like the revival of the crockpot and pressure cooker, a band of McLaren Vale winemakers is trying to reinvigorate a forgotten grape from Australia’s past: grenache.

First planted here in the 1830s, grenache was a key component in Australia’s fortified wines and was planted until the 1950s, when we started drinking shiraz and cabernet sauvignon as still table wines.
Many of these old bush vines still exist in the Barossa and McLaren Vale, where they produce luscious, textured wines with rich fruit and spicy notes. They are wines that can stand up to the rich, comforting flavours we seek on our plate each winter.

Grenache also lends itself to blending with shiraz and mouvedre, and in France’s Rhone Valley it’s made its name in exalted places such as Chateauneuf du Pape and the more affordable Cotes du Rhone appellation.

In Australia, grenache-based wines are often labelled as GSM (grenache shiraz mouvedre), with shiraz adding polish and mouvedre adding backbone to produce what I think is an underrated style of wine.
A few years ago, some of the guardians of these old grenache vines in South Australia’s McLaren Vale launched the Cadenzia range of premium grenache-dominant wines to put the grape back on the map.
The name is based on the musical term cadenza, which refers to a section of a concerto when the orchestra stops playing, leaving soloists to improvise and express themselves. And these wines certainly have their own personalities.

To be certified as a Cadenzia, the wines are made from 100 per cent McLaren Vale grapes and must be approved by an independent tasting panel.

So next time you pull out the slow cooker and improvise with the ingredients, which is what I tend to do with slow cooking, go for a wine that will help turn your meal into a virtuoso performance.

LOVE A BARGAIN?

Gemtree Cadenzia 2008
(McLaren Vale) $25; 15%
4½/5
Food match: Chorizo and butterbean stew.

This blend of grenache (60 per cent) with equal parts of tempranillo and shiraz has complex ripe fruit aromas of raspberries, cherries, redcurrants and a little spice. It’s light in colour but has rich, mouth-filling flavours of strawberry, blood plum, raspberry and pepper spice. It’s a wine of real finesse – smooth in the mouth with a rich and textured palate, fine, grippy tannins and considerable length.