A beautiful crimson-purple, edging toward a purple hue. On the nose, we find tomato leaves, violets and red fruits. It’s medium-bodied with more of those red fruits, pomegranate, and rhubarb. A little on the ripe side, with some green edges. There’s some lovely, beautiful crisp acidity. A gloriously dry finish. Velvety tannins envelop the wine. Light easy-drinking in its youth. With time, this wine will become a showstopper.
The Name: During the vine pull scheme in the 1980s, d’Arry Osborn refused to remove his old grenache vineyards. Today d’Arenberg is the keeper of nearly one-third of McLaren Vale’s old bush vine grenache, earning the title of ‘Custodian’ of the variety.
2018 was an exceptional year for Grenache in the McLaren Vale. An absolute abundance of fruit on the nose, with all the classics, blueberry, plum, liquorice, spice and earth. The palate too is full of presence. Juicy and generous but with a seam of crunchy tannin and lively acid that add structure and fresh punch to the wine. All of these big rich fruits are wrapped around a graphite almost ferrous like framework. Immediately drinkable but undoubtedly a Grenache built for time. If enjoying young be sure to decant or at a minimum allow it to breath in the glass. Your patience will reward you.
The name of the wine is inspired by the time in the 1980s and early 90s when Grenache was considered unfashionable, Chester acquired many old bush vine, overgrown and abandoned vineyards. These vineyards still have a slightly dishevelled appearance, but they are back producing very low yields of exceptional fruit.
The Ironstone Pressings is named because most of McLaren Vale’s acclaimed and historic vineyards are impregnated with ancient, decomposed laterite granite known as ironstone. Its extraordinary rusty red-brown colour is derived from the iron oxides present in the stone. The larger pieces were cleared from the vineyards in the late 1880s and utilised in many of the buildings at d’Arenberg, most notably the old stables.
Unctuous blackberry and plum notes lay at the heart of this classic d’Arenberg example of a Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre (GSM). A spattering of exotic spices the likes of star anise, cardamom and nutmeg cling to the sweet, dark fruits and of course, it wouldn’t be a d’Arenberg wine without a rousing dose of earthy, gamey character. The palate is fleshy and juicy with an almost velvet-like texture. Abundantly warm and generous but sufficiently structured to suggest this wine can go the long hall.
While enjoyable in youth, this wine will reach its full potential with bottle age up to at least 20 years. The considerable structure and depth will ensure that the fruit characters will develop over time revealing more complexity and providing immense interest.
