Maxwell Grenache Blanc 2024

Given that McLaren Vale has become a superstar with red grenache it’s fascinating to also see white grenache examples from the region. Indeed not just from McLaren; from anywhere where grenache either is or has the potential to be grown well.

I’ve never been a “difference for difference’s sake” kind of person, and have long been irritated by the wine media’s obsession with “what’s new”, rather than with what’s good. The magazine commissions I’ve lost over the years for refusing to beat the drum of some “hot new variety” that isn’t, in fact, very good, are numerous. Grenache Blanc though is a variety that I’d be happy to write about any time. Thistledown, Yalumba, Willunga 100, Moorak, Aphelion and Yangarra – to name but a few – are all making delicious wines with this variety and looking at the wine on my desk right now – Maxwell Grenache Blanc 2024 ($22) – it’s clear that Maxwell in McLaren Vale is right up there with the best of them. This wine – which spent time in old, neutral oak – is super textural, and yet dry, and yet chalky, and yet grapey, with salt notes laid into grapefruit, honey, wax and apple. It isn’t a white wine that you drink “on your way to a red wine”; it’s a white wine that you want to settle in with. Track it down, you should.