Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024.

Yangarra Old Vine Grenache 2024
$50, 14% alcohol, screwcap, McLaren Vale.

‘Old Vine’ here refers to a dry-grown, bush-vine, biodynamic-certified block of grenache that was planted in 1946. It’s fermented wild with 50% whole berries. Some of this wine was left macerating on skins for over two months. It was matured in a mix of amphora, ceramic egg and foudre.

The flavour here is savoury in general and yet it’s driven by a sweet, juicy ripeness. That’s the sleight-of-hand that drives the quality of this wine straight towards excellence. It’s a wine of finesse, and of filigreed tannin, and of juicy, raspberried, come-hither fruit, and yet throughout there are notes of rust, chalk, dried herbs, saltbush and crushed, dry leaves. It’s a ripping drink, decidedly good value in the overall scheme of things, charismatic and charming. 94 points.

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Yangarra Estate is a Mattinson 10-Star Winery.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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