Barossa, Part 2

 The main purpose of my visit this time is to get to know some of the newer wineries and their wine styles. Eperosa is a small operation by winemaker Brett Grocke. It shot to some fame when Brett Grocke was named winemaker of the year by James Halliday in 2021. Most wines come from the two owned vineyards in Krondorf and the Magnolia vineyard in Vine Vale. He makes mainly Semillon and the Rhone varieties. I will cover the most important wines below.

The 2020 Magnolia 1941 Semillon is grown in deep sand (as is common in the Hunter). The wine spent 16 months on lees and is barrel fermented. This means it is getting quite a bit of treatment. Lemon and oyster shell flavours lead to a bigger texture than often associated with Semillon. There is some slight oxidation in this wine. It has some waxiness on the back palate. I found this an attractive style (92 points).

The leading Grenache is the 2020 Stonegarden 1858 Grenache. As is the case with fruit from the Hoffmann vineyard in Ebenezer, suddenly everybody wants fruit from this old Springton, Eden Valley vineyard. The vineyard is high altitude, with rocky soil. This wine is red fruited, as you would expect, with red cola flavours. It also has a dark presence with licorice notes. I must say I expected more from this (92 points).

The most important wines are the Shiraz wines from the Magnolia vineyard. It sits at the base of Menglers Hill at over 300m altitude. A number of gullies run through the property and split the vineyard into distinctive blocks, planted at different times. The soils vary, with deep sand the most common.

The 2020 Magnolia 1965 Shiraz comes from the highest part of the vineyard. It is farmed organically. It is quite a concentrated wine, with violet notes, blue fruited (similar to Eden Valley) with some iron flavours, and very elegant. Brett compared the wine to Cornas (94 points).

The 2020 Magnolia 1896 Shiraz is grown on rockier soil. Again, it is blue fruited and shows an ethereal elegance, which one seems to only get from very old vines. The tannins are fine and the finish long (95 points).

I enjoyed the two flagship wines. They taste more like Eden Valley than Barossa Valley. The other wines are fine, but not so special (except for the Semillon).

The next stop was Alkina. Alkina is the talk of the valley right now. The 60ha property near Greenock was purchased by Argentinian billionaire Alejandro Bulgheroni about 10 years ago. He also owns wineries in Argentina, Uruguay, France, USA and Italy. 6ha on the property was planted in 1950. Another 37ha have been planted by now, some parts going back to 1970, some only a few years old. The vineyard is managed biodynamically, and extraction in the winery is on the light side. Significant investment in concrete eggs, Italian Amphorae and Georgian Qveri give the winery a look unlike any other in the Barossa Valley.

The entry level wines from young vines are called Kin. I tasted the 2022 Semillon, and the 2021 Grenache and Mataro from this range. The Semillon is fuller bodied than the Hunter wines. The reds show great typicity. There is great freshness and fruit purity in these wines (92-93 points).

I did not like the 2020 Birdsong Shiraz much. It was matured in old foudres. The wine is very fruity, followed by drying tannins (89 points).

I now need to talk about the Polygon project. Electro conductivity mapping technology has been used on the original 6ha vineyard to separate out in fine detail different soil types. This is done by sending electromagnetic impulses into the ground. This project is lead by Chilean soil scientist Pedro Parra and Italian winemaker Alberto Antonini. Based on the mapping, a number of soil pits are excavated. Different profiles were identified. These small blocks now form the basis for individual wines. It is expected they will show differences, depending on the schist, clay, limestone and quartzite compositions.

The first wine I taste from this area is a blend, however: the classic GSM. The 60% Grenache comes from Polygon 4, comprising clay and degraded schist. It is called 2020 Old Quarter. The wine is fresh, very elegant, pretty, and complex. It is very balanced between components, which have 70-100% whole bunch. There is excellent minerality on the finish (95 points).

The 2019 Polygon 5 Grenache is made in a similar way. The soil is schist with clay and iron. It translates into a firmer structure. This is a dark and elegant wine with intense raspberry and red plum flavours.  The tannins are very fine (95 points). This is supposed to contrast with the Polygon 3 Grenache. These wines are made in minuscule quantities, and unfortunately, no more Polygon 3 was available. The 2019 Polygon 1 Shiraz comes from a schist  and quartzite block. This is a bigger wine, blackberry, mocca, and licorice flavours, with firm and chalky tannins (95 points). There will never be much of these wines, we are talking about 50 cases each.

Overall, Alkina is an innovator, bringing something new to the Barossa. The wines are positioned on the beginning of the ripeness spectrum, with great fruit purity and finesse.