The Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale make a wonderful home for Grenache, with some seriously gnarled old vines producing pure, concentrated and smooth wines. Here are just a couple.

Wirra Wirra The Absconder 2012 McLaren Vale

This Grenache shares the top echelon at Wirra Wirra alongside the RSW Shiraz and Angelus Cabernet Sauvignon, each of them exceptional and presented with true class. This is a very attractive medium purple in colour, with raspberry, plum compote, pencil lead and liquorice on the nose.

It has juicy red fruit, raspberry, strawberry and a touch of vanilla. Silky smooth, full bodied, with a good level of powdery tannins and fresh acid providing a long and delicious finish of raspberry, liquorice and chocolate. It’s a lovely wine with great concentration and purity. Savoury and balanced, you just want to go back for more. Drink with venison sausages. Drink now to 2018.

RRP $70 – Alcohol 14.5% – Tasted 04/11/13 – Sample supplied

Cirillo 1850 Ancestor Vine Grenache 2010 Barossa Valley

These Cirillo Grenache vines, planted in 1848, claim to be the world’s oldest. The wine, matured in a mixture of French and American oak, has the complexity and interest you’d expect. It’s medium ruby in colour, pink-orange at the rim and it smells of fresh raspberries, rhubarb crumble, custard and a lick of leather. The intense, full-bodied palate has plums and pretty strawberry and raspberry fruit, orange peel and a touch of milk chocolate and cream. It finishes long with fresh red fruits shining through.

RRP $50 – Alcohol 14.2% – Tasted 18/09/13