Tasting every Head Wines Grenache ever made
Opening up your very early wines has to be a vulnerable experience. There your babies are, with all their foibles, looking creaky/great. Not that I’d know how this feels, of course, because I tipped out my student wines in disgust (they were junk and deserved it). But I can at least guess this is how Alex Head felt opening every Head Wines Grenache he’s ever made for us over lunch recently. He didn’t need to worry; those early wines looked great. Alex and I have been friends for twenty-odd years now, harking back to our old Sydney wine retail days when we’d go out and drink Burgundy that we couldn’t afford. I’ve also seen some of the very early, largely unreleased Head Wines releases right through to the vintages, so this wasn’t an unfamiliar exercise, more a great opportunity to track how the wines changed. There’s been plenty of stylistic evolution here, too. The Head Wines story starts back in 2006, when Alex decided he wanted to become a winemaker. He’d spent years working for the legendary Ultimo Wine Centre and then at Langton’s (back when it was good), and was a huge Rhone fan, so the Barossa was a natural starting point for winemaking. Initially, however, it was a quest to make great, savoury Shiraz that was the focal point. Then, in 2009, he started working with Marco Cirillo in Vine Vale and couldn’t understand why Grenache wasn’t the most important wine in the Barossa (which is not hard when you spend some time in Marco’s amazing 1848-planted vineyard). Alex was thus convinced that he was going to make a Chateauneuf take in the Barossa, and the Head Wines Old Vine Grenache was born. The inaugural 2009 release also used fruit from Marco’s vineyard, which was matured in a reconditioned 100-year-old barrel from Chateau Yaldara. That 2009 was warmly received (from my hazy memory), and by the following year, Alex had secured fruit from the old Greenock Farm property (now Alkina) and was shortly taking all the old vine fruit off that estate. Over the years, the Head Wines Grenache story has grown to the point where Alex was taking fruit from 10 different old-vine Barossa Grenache vineyards. That has now slimmed down to 3-6 growers, with a shift also from Barossa Valley floor vineyards to more Eden Valley fruit. That’s not the only change – in 2011, he introduced a rule that he wouldn’t add or remove anything from these wines (except for sulphur), embracing wild ferments in old oak (except for 2016, which saw some new wood) with no fining or filtration. There have also been subtle shifts in production methods, undoubtedly influenced by some of the winemakers Alex has worked with over the years, including Marco Cirillo and Damien Tscharke. Looking at this vertical as a group, I dip my lid to what ‘Heady’ has achieved. These are pretty great advertisements for how good Barossa Grenache can taste, and the Old Vine Grenache is also, contextually, extremely well priced – especially for a wine that can be as little as 100 dozen in production (though closer to 300 in recent years). Let’s take a look at some of the Old Vine Grenache, then, hey? A caveat that these notes are a bit rushed, as I was trying to absorb all the stories, eat the delicious Fix St James food (as above. So good), taste the wines, and write at the same time, which is a level of multitasking that even my restlessness can’t perfectly manage. Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2009 The OG, made in an old port barrel from Chateau Yaldara with fruit from Marco Cirillo’s 1848 vineyard. 10% whole bunches, 10 months in oak. pH 3.7, TA 5.4g/L. 100 dozen produced. Tea leaf and caramel development – quite forward, and with what would have been quite a bit of lusciousness in its youth. Coffeed and caramel, but a solid black fruit core in there too. Drink up, but lots of charm too. 17.7/20, 92/100. 14.5%. Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2010 Greenock fruit from the Russell (now Alkina) vineyard, planted in the 1950s. pH 3.7, TA 5.4g/L. Plush and much more youthful than the 2009. Brick dust, but more youth and chunky power rather than just developed. Red dirt, black jubes in red dirt, fine powdery tannins. Just a bit of warmth. This is quality aged Grenache, with a nod especially to the fine powdery tannins. 18.5/20, 94/100. 14.5% Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2011 Greenock fruit from the Russell Vineyard. No whole bunches this (famously wet and humid) harvest, 12 months in old oak. pH 3.7, TA 5.8g/L. Volume is up – 300 dozen produced. A very different wine. Lucid raspberry fruit, slightly bony with a dark peppery pointiness. Pretty, with a Pinot-esque raspberry fruit vibe. Lacks some intensity, but crisp and quite fine. An anomaly wine, but not insignificant. 17.5/20, 91/100. 13.5% Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2012 Fruit from the Hongell Vineyard at Krondorf, planted in 1942. 15% whole bunches. 11 months in oak. pH 3.7, TA 4.9g/L. 250 dozen produced. Real glycerol sweetness at the moment. Lush and round – a more classic archetype. Feels super youthful too. There’s a little treacly warmth to the texture, and it gets a bit large on the finish. A big wine for this lineup but has a coffee, swashbuckling blackness too. Has a bit of a Chateauneuf leatheriness. Just a big warm, but pretty grand. 18/20, 93/100. 15.1% Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2013 Fruit also from the Hongell Vineyard. pH 3.6, TA 4.8g/L. Interestingly, I found this to be a tiring and unusual wine, which was perplexing. I bailed up Alex, who thought this had plenty of botrytis and was also falling over. It’s a curious wine, with a hint of reduction, this weird bran flavour, cherries and a lack of fruit clarity. I didn’t see the botrytis, but it just felt stripped and weird. 16.8/20, 89/100. 14.3% Head Wines Old Vine Grenache 2014 Hongell Vineyard
