It’s nearly 30 years since I drank too much Southwark in the Greenock Creek Tavern with master stonemason Michael Waugh, scribbling ideas for a suite of vineyards on the back of an envelope.
The notion was to procure or plant them on the contrasting geologies around Greenock and make each wine separately. Not many people did that sort of thing in those days. Being the sort of bloke he is, my green-thumbed rock-doctoring mate went home and gradually built such a business.
Greenock Creek Vineyards and Cellars Barossa Valley Cornerstone Grenache 2014
$29; 14.5% alcohol; cork; 95+ points
Michael famously doesn’t much like Grenache. But even he bregudgingly thinks this is a good one. I’ll go further, and suggest that while it ideally needs a year or 10, it’s certainly amongst the best of the formidable Greenock Creek Grenache wines.
Grenache from these old bushvines on Roennfeldt’s Road has always been amongst the front of the pack, even when those alcohols have been well above the sorts of numbers my prejudice prefers. It’s a good illustration of my abiding theory that if grown and made respectfully with acids high enough to balance its alcohol, and it’s not gloopy or jammy, Grenache has the potential to be this state’s replacement for Pinot noir, which doesn’t grow very well in our increasing heat.
From the first sniff, this is a complete Grenache, and dead serious. The bouquet is broody and almost sullen upon opening, but slowly the morello cherries poke their drowsy heads up through the pretty, ethereal marshmallow and musky confectioner’s sugar that emerge first in the topnote. In counterpoint, there’s just the right pinch of acrid summer dust that we see in the best years from its home in the tough stone of Hopeless Hill.
Also slow to emerge is that distinctive regional waft of freshly-dressed leather, melding smoothly into the whole effect, adding luxurious flesh. While it has ample cushion, the texture is more slender than the bouquet indicates, with those slightly bitter pickled cherries taking the form of a savoury lozenge that seems to melt slowly in the middle of your tongue. The acid works the cheeks and smacks the lips and entwined with the finest drying tannins, draws the whole thing out to a sweet/savoury seesaw that triggers immediate hunger.
This is masterful red wine. It’ll cellar brilliantly, but it goes magically with tea-smoked duck, just a little pink in the middle so the juice is running.
Greenock Creek Vineyards and Cellars Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
$38; 13.5% alcohol; cork; 94+++ points
This is drop-dead gorgeous. Like most of the 2013 Greenock Creek wines – there are also five Shiraz wines from different blocks – it’s not as tight and reluctant as the 2012s, with their extreme longevity obvious at release. Which quite simply makes it a more stunning wonder from the start.
All the usual confectioner’s topnotes are here in abundance, adding their lacy frill to the bouquet. But the fruit, the blackberries, mulberries and blackcurrants are pushing their way to the fore on the first pour … it’s a heady, tantalising delight.
Drink. The palate is dense and compressed, with a hint of ironstone, which is unusual from this block. Maybe the roots have gotten themselves another foot or two into whatever rocks lie below that rich alluvial loam and clay on the creek. They never stop reaching deeper.
It confounds me, this sheer, ungiving tightness and density – the pretty cuteness of the fragrance had me expecting a more frivolous drink. Uh-huh. This is very serious, even mighty Cabernet for the cellar, and seems determined to be even more so a day after opening. It’s remarkable in the manner in which it follows that impenetrable opening palate with steely acid and juniper/bay leaf tannin that dumbfounds the mouth. It’s rare to enjoy being conquered so completely.
Long after swallowing, the wine teases and sucks at the sensories, hanging me out for saltimbocca of the quality Enzo’s, Chianti or Amalfi consistently serve.
Ten years should do it. Stunning.
Greenock Creek Roennfeldt’s Road Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2010
$195; 13% alcohol; cork; 95-96++ points
Just as the 2013 reds are not quite as dense and mighty as the 2012s, the Roennfeldts go the other way: 2010 is more dense and mighty than the 2009 offerings, and will probably live longer. Which is saying something, considering the force of last year’s release. I doubt that I’ll live to see either of them at their majestic peak. Damn!
The panforte aromas typical of this tiny sub-region are here: nutmeg and ground coriander seed with all the nuts and dried fruits and cooked honey; an analogy that even includes the dusting of icing sugar that decorates that lovely Siena cake. It’s a deeply satisfying sensation that tempts the drinker to sneak off for a few days and selfishly savour the wine alone.
But that could be risky. The flavours and form of the wine are so complex, yet harmonious and smooth, that one could sink the entire bottle in the one session, and swoon dangerously.
While the wine is of modest alcohol, this is not to suggest it’s light. On the contrary, it seems heavy in weight as much as densely-flavoured. It’s almost leaden in its mass: once it moves into the mouth it just sits there, gradually letting its fine velvety tannins and firm acid build til it it weighs the tongue down, setting the brain a-dancing in awe.
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