Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2021

Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2021 is one of the best releases ever.

Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2021
$1000, 14.5% alcohol, screwcap, Eden Valley.

If you’re looking for the review itself, skip straight to the final paragraph.
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It’s both sobering and inspiring to note that the classic 1962 vintage of Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz was grown on 100 year old vines. As in, the vines were already 100 years old way back in 1962. This is the bleeding obvious but it remains worth pointing out. Australia is home to some of the world’s oldest soils, most ancient cultures and indeed to some of the world’s oldest producing grape vines. Hill of Grace Shiraz doesn’t have exclusive access to Australia’s oldest vines in the wider sense but it is certainly grown on some of them.

I tasted that 1962 Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz in 2012. It was 50 years old at the time, and it was glorious. I wrote of it, in part, “Outrageously aromatic. Spadefuls of old, developed sweetness. Earth and saddles. Sweet hay. Lines of mineral. Beefy, substantial, almost licoricey mid-palate. Honey. All manner of dried herbs and seeds. A tremendous old beauty.”

That 1962 Hill of Grace Shiraz was rolled out on the release of the 2008 Hill of Grace. The 2008 was an anticipated vintage, and there was talk on its release around whether it was up with the best ever releases of Hill of Grace. There was similar talk when the 2015 was released. I haven’t tasted every release of Hill of Grace Shiraz by any stretch but of the ones I’ve tasted I’d rank these as the best of them: 1986, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016 and now 2021. The notable omissions in that roll call are the 1991, which I don’t list simply because I’ve not tasted it, and the 1998, which was a great vintage in the Barossa/Eden valley region but was not a great Hill of Grace. Notable additions to this form guide would be to add both the 1988 and 2018 releases, both of which outshine their relative vintage reputation.

Which brings us to the latest edition of Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz, the 2021 vintage. I spent a few days tasting it recently. By ‘a few days’ I mean that I opened a bottle at home, allowed it to breathe for a few hours, and then assessed and reviewed it. Two-thirds of the bottle were still intact post reviewing, so this bottle remained on my desk. I kept on tasting it over the next couple of days. My final little session with the wine involved me pouring a glass and then walking out into the backyard of the suburban house that I’m renting as an office. This house has a decent back lawn. I walked out onto this grass with bare feet. I then stood in the middle of the backyard, where the Hills Hoist clothesline had once been. With grass between my toes then I stood and drank a few sips of few-days-open Hill of Grace Shiraz. I’d been “looking” at this wine for three days but this was the first time that, instead of spitting and writing, I’d swallowed it.

The wine had changed since I’d reviewed it. I haven’t yet adjusted my review, though I may. The wine had not changed drastically, but it had changed enough. Some people are rightly sceptical of these two-days-later assessments, and think of them as an exercise in oxidised-wine-assessment. Other people think these long-haul assessments should be the norm. Some days, when I taste a premium wine two days later, the oak has risen up in the wine, and the fruit has given up. It’s illuminating; it’s like seeing how much iceberg there is beneath the surface or, indeed, how little.

I reviewed the 2021 Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz on The Winefront. Mike Bennie also reviewed it, and his views are interesting. My review in part was: “This is a super Hill of Grace release but it’s also an interesting one. Indeed it may even be polarising, which is not something often said of Hill of Grace. It’s ripped with dark berried fruit, it’s alive with roasted spice, campfire, undergrowth and earth, it shows enough toasty oak to give it something extra and it lays fine-grained tannin down in the most authoritative of ways. It’s also exceptionally long – and structural – through the finish, which is the main reason it qualifies as an outstanding release of Hill of Grace Shiraz. The extra interest comes in the wine’s truffle-like top notes. These notes give the aromas an exotic edge.”

I had a little more to say, and then scored the wine 96/100 points.

94/100 is the start of “gold medal standard”. 96/100 is a “high gold”. I had from the first day of tasting it pegged the 2021 Hill of Grace Shiraz release as outstanding.

Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz 2021 review:

But I realised, as I stood out there on the lawn, drinking this beautiful wine from a vineyard that’s been doing its thing for longer than any of us, that I was wrong to call this release polarising. Sometimes, stuck at the desk, tasting wine, every day, for weeks on end, you get to the point where you need to get out more. Out there in the open air, away from the devices and electronics, this release seemed miraculous. The tannin on this wine. I noted it from the start but I can’t emphasise the structural integrity of this wine enough. It’s like the bamboo that they make scaffolding out of in Japan. There’s strength and there’s charisma and there’s purpose and there’s wonder. I don’t really want to join the chorus of near perfect scores but I am well prepared now to admit this: I don’t think that I have ever tasted a Hill of Grace Shiraz, on release, that is as impressive as this 2021.