Personalised Aphelion Hickinbotham Grenache Noir 2024 14.1% 750ml

 

TASTING NOTES

 

APPEARANCE

Bright vibrant purple in the glass.

 

AROMA

Lifted aromatics of cranberry, bramble, and cherry.

 

PALATE

Herbal characters abound on the palate, with rosehip, just-ripe strawberry, and blood orange flavours. A rasp of light tannin provides good length and a savoury finish. The Hickinbotham Grenache has great energy and vitality in a medium bodied frame.

 

REGION NOTES

Sourced from Blocks 111-113 at the highest elevation of the Hickinbotham vineyard in Clarendon. A southerly aspect provides respite from the hot afternoon sun during ripening ensuring that this fruit is the last Grenache harvested with a very long hang time on the vine to produce a very well-developed flavour profile.

 

WINEMAKERS COMMENTS

Part of our premium SV Grenache range, the fruit used to make this wine is sourced from a single vineyard in the Clarendon area of McLaren Vale. The highest altitude wine in the range with vibrancy and crisp acid drive, red fruits mingle with herbal briar characters to create a wine of freshness and depth.

 

FOOD MATCHING

Vegetable lasagne with a rich béchamel.

 

VINIFICATION

The fruit was hand-picked on the 3rd March and processed as a 100% whole bunch ferment. After a slow and cool ferment the fruit was pressed to large format neutral French oak where it remained on full lees until racking for bottling in May 2025.

 

GRAPE VARIETY

100% Grenache

Reviews:

Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion - 97 Pts

There were three Aphelion single-block micro-bottlings from the Hickinbotham vineyard, Clarendon, in '24. This is not an assemblage of those, rather a 100% whole bunch ferment (the block wines were destemmed) of 111–112 blocks as one. This is my pick of the three – gloriously fragrant and complex, invested with depth and absent of heft. A swirl of red florals, souk spices, sandalwood, cranberry, sour cherry and umeboshi. The whole bunch adds savouriness, detail, lift and finely etched tannin, but knits in so quietly, with effortless integration. It's a wine that makes me want to linger over the nose, so captivating is the fragrance. But it's equally good on the palate, trailing long, the flavour fanning out expansively. Superb.

Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front - 96 Pts

I lost an hour or so today because I was sitting and marvelling at this wine and wondering how the hell I could do it justice in words. Some wines are better than the person writing about them. This wine pulls out the spice box and throws it at you, the fortunate thing being that the box wasn't full and so what hits you seems reasonable. There are red licorice notes, red and black cherry, sandalwood, potpourri, an assortment of dry, roasted spices, a musky-vanillin-strawberry-shake note, and a peppercorn aspect. The way the flavours here volley through the palate, and the way it feels dry in the face of its own ripeness, and the way it then pulls a film of firm tannin right back through the wine – is all both magnificent and elite.

Huon Hooke, The Real Review - 95 Pts

Medium-deep red-purple; lovely sweet raspberry/cherry fruit laced with mixed spices and iodine, with some complexing earthy/tarry and ironstone touches. Intense sweet fruit backed by emery-like tannins that dry the finish. Very smart grenache.